Drought Means Lake O Releases Unlikely

With a drought underway, there's one bright side...concerns of another toxic algae crisis are dampened.  The algae is blamed on discharges from Lake Okeechobee, but with the lake below 12 feet and no significant rain in sight...

"It's certainly at a level which says less likely that releases will have to be made."

Randy Smith is the spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District.  

"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the lake, would prefer that the water levels in the lake be between 12.5 feet and 15.5 feet, but you can see we've still got at least a month and a half to go in this dry season and it's already a half a foot below kind of their comfort zone.  That means that when it does start raining, there's going to be a lot of space in the lake.  It's going to be able to accomodate quite a bit of water."

He tells me that a hurricane or tropical storm could change that.

Smith is urging residents of Palm Beach County to conserve.

"The biggest practice and most significant savings of water is by reducing the amount of landscape irrigation, how much we water our lawns.  If you can cut that back to 2 days a week and practice other conservation efforts, the hope is that we can maybe be able to limp into the wet season with still a water supply in place."

He says, otherwise we could wind up with mandatory restrictions added.

Photo: Getty Images


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