SFWMD Workshop...EAA Reservoirs Mon. 11/21 [Archive]

N. Cook

11-17-2005, 01:45 PM

Meeting will be at the SFWMD officies on Gun Club Rd starting at 5 pm on Monday 11/21. These reserviors will be important to duck hunters and anglers. These workshops in the "design phase" will need input from those who want to have recreation access and facilities.

The Reservoirs will be built from north of Lake O down into the glades. This meeting is on the Everglades Agricultural Area.

Converted

11-17-2005, 02:35 PM

This should be a good one for our Maimi-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County guys. It will also be reachable from the west coast. A very large reservoir is being planned north of STA 3/4 and west of US 27. We are pushing for the reservoirs to be open without any permits required once construction is complete. Average depth in this one is 12 feet in the wet season and parts could go dry in the dry season.

This is a very important CERP project and is on the Acceler8 fast track time schedule. Once complete it will be able to hold nearly 200,000 acre feet of water off Lake O before it is released through the STA's to the glades.

Now if we could just find a place for that other 2,000,000 acre feet that we need to store :sad11:

Just to let everyone know a bit about the battle we may find on all of these reservoir projects...

There is a school of thought out there that these projects do not need to be fish and wildlife friendly. Things like roller compacted concrete leeves are in some of the plans. They will be able to stand up to the storms but there is obviously no litorial zone with this type of construction. Some of the scientists and water managers want these projects to be run as effecient storage reservoirs without having to account for the health of fish and wildlife in their management decisions. The idea is that this will allow for maximum benefit to Lake O and to the estuaries. The problem I see and have tried to bring up at several meetings is that once you build this project it will attract fish and wildlife no matter what the original intent was. You might as well design it to be an efficient reservoir and wildlife friendly right up front. Things like gentle slopes on banks (maybe with roller compacted concrete underneath), deaper pockets in parts of the reservoir so that the fish have some place to go during low water events, etc.

It is important that we try and get input on these projects before the design gets too far down the road. I'd hate to spend the millions and end up with a big bathtub right in the middle of the glades!