SFWMD WRAC meeting on Lake O restoration - June 25

[Wdavis]

WATER MANAGEMENT DISTRICTS
South Florida Water Management District
The Water Resources Advisory Commission (WRAC), Lake Okeechobee Committee meeting announces a public meeting to which all persons are invited.
DATE AND TIME: June 25, 2008, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
PLACE: SFWMD, Lower West Regional Service Center, 2301 MacGregor Blvd., Ft. Myers, FL
GENERAL SUBJECT MATTER TO BE CONSIDERED: A Public Meeting of the Water Resources Advisory Commission (WRAC) regarding issues of the restoration and protection of Lake Okeechobee; and the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie Estuaries. The public is advised that it is possible that one or more members of the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District may attend and participate in this meeting.
A copy of the agenda may be obtained by contacting: Rick Smith at (561)682-6517 or at our website: http://my.sfwmd.gov/wrac.

[N. Cook]

Great opportunity for those in the area to see info direct from the District on the lake's current and projected conditions.

I will be there as a member of the SFWMD WRAC Lake Okeechobee Cmte. arriving the evening before the meeting....always glad to visit with members and friends when in an area.

[Waterfowl Fool]

Noted. Thank you. I hope to satrt attending some of these soon !

[N. Cook]

As you can imagine a lot of the day was spent on speculation about what the US Sugar deal means to the Restoration process. However, we did get a report on the Lake.

The lake hovers at 10 feet and remains lower than prefered for the date. There is a 75% chance the lake will be above 12 feet in October...but a "normal" rainy season is needed....so far too much water is falling south and east of the lake and not enough north of the lake.

Phosporous levels and turbidity are good as the lake has been "steady" with no high winds or storms. Muck removal continues in the northwest and the fires are out, but burned about 39,000 acres...Great!!!! in the northwest.

Vegetation is coming back slower than expected....some good spreading, but little biomass in depth....this is a problem.

All in all, the lake is in good shape but we could use more rain in the Kissimmee valley to get a nice slow rise started....

[David B]

The Kiss valley and the Lake itself got dumped on from 4pm until 9pm this afternoon and evening. I haven't seen rain that hard in years, let's say August of 2004.

[novaalex]

Ya'll must be going cookoo up there with all that rain!