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Palms West Monthly • June 2019 • Page 1
Palms West
Monthly
WELLINGTON • ROYAL PALM BEACH • WEST PALM BEACH • LOXAHATCHEE GROVES • THE ACREAGE Volume 9, Number 6
Onlookers bid ‘Safe travels’ to rescued loggerhead After eight months of rehab, a rescued loggerhead was released and returned to the sea from the Loggerhead Marinelife Center on May 22.
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BOOK FINE FORGIVENESS! PBC libraries offering fine forgiveness through June. Do you qualify? PAGE 6
FREE • June 2019
Lake O’s Great Debate
The Army Corps of Engineers has been keeping Lake Okeechobee’s water level lower than usual. Some say it will save the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers from toxic algae blooms. Others claim it risks a devastating water shortage.
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Businesses open during Clematis Streetscape work
Stores and restaurants on the 200 block of Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach are open and easily accessible, but the block will be closed to vehicles until October.
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Habitat for Humanity tourney raises needed funds Habitat for Humanity Palm Beach County hosted its 12th Annual Home in One Golf Classic on April 12 in Palm Beach Gardens.
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High-flying photo exhibition …
Photos taken by astronaut Scott Kelly will go on exhibit in June in downtown West Palm Beach’s Palm Beach Photographic Centre, with an opening reception free to the public taking place June 19.
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In the summer of 2016, water full of algae lapped along the Sewell’s Point shore on the St. Lucie River under an Ocean Boulevard bridge. The Martin County Commission decided to ask state and federal authorities to declare a disaster where blue-green By TYLER TREADWAY and ED KILLER The Associated Press
OKEECHOBEE — Lake Okeechobee is Florida’s “Liquid Heart,” and people who depend on it for irrigation, drinking water, recreation and their livelihoods are often in conflict on how to take care of it. This year, the conflict has heated up because the Army Corps of Engineers has been keeping the level lower than usual. Some say it will save the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers from toxic algae blooms. Others claim it risks a devastating water shortage. Mark Twain, who supposedly said: “Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over,” would feel right at home at Lake Okeechobee. Beginning early this year, the Corps began efforts to lower Lake Okeechobee, primarily with discharges to the St. Lucie River from Feb. 23 to March 31 and continuing discharges to the Caloosahatchee River, with two goals: Reduce the risk of needing large-scale discharges during the summer rainy season because of high-water threats to the Herbert Hoover Dike. The logic is pretty simple: The more water you get out of the lake during the dry season, the more space you have in the lake to take on rainwater during the wet season without a risk of dike failure or massive toxic algae blooms. Improve the growth of underwater plants that are a major part of the lake’s ecosystem. The plants need shallow water – less than 12 feet in elevation for at least 30 days – to germinate and grow. Over the last few years, the lake has been too deep, and the range of underwater plants has dropped from more than 40,000 acres to around 5,000 acres. Well, so far so good – at least for the plants. Since the discharges started, the lake has dropped more than one-and-a-half feet, from about 12 feet, 10 inches to 11 feet, 3 inches on May 17. Most of that is because of evaporation; the 8 billion gallons of water discharged to the St. Lucie River accounted for just about half an inch off the lake. Discharges to the
via AP Photo/Richard Graulich
algae had closed beaches. County officials on Florida’s Atlantic coast also pressed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to close the locks between Lake Okeechobee and the St. Lucie River.
Caloosahatchee are continuing. “Since the Corps began taking the water down, the submerged vegetation has been doing really good,” Lawrence Glenn, coastal systems administrator for the South Florida Water Management District, recently told the SFWMD board. “We’re really getting coverage back.”
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Right now, we’re not in a dire situation because the wet season appears to be just around the corner. But there’s the potential, if we don’t get enough rain during the summer, to be in rough shape in November, December, January.
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— Palm Beach County water resources manager Jeremy McBryan
The submerged vegetation helps clean the water and provides critical habitat for fish and aquatic life. It also helps prevent toxic algae blooms, Glenn said, because the submerged plants compete with blue-green algae cells for nutrients in the water. “What we’re hoping is that they duke it out and that the submerged aquatic vegetation wins,” he said. Whether the lower lake level will prevent summer discharges remains to be seen, particularly if we have an active tropical
storm season. Corps officials like to point to Hurricane Irma in September 2017, which raised the lake more than 3 feet – from a comfortable 13 feet, 8 inches to a dangerous 17 feet-plus – in less than a month. Cross-state boaters and heartland marina operators say Lake O is too low. Robert Lambert of Everglades Reserve Holding, a company looking to manage the 100-slip Pahokee Marina and Campground, said in mid-May the channel entering the marina basin is just 3 feet, 6 inches deep. Vessels drawing more than that are damaging propellers and rudders. “These are not the kind of repairs we want to be doing for our clients,” John Helfrich, manager of River Forest Yachting Center, which has facilities on the C-43 Canal at LaBelle and the C-44 Canal near Stuart, told a meeting of commissioners from five lakeside counties in mid-May. “What will happen if the lake gets lower, or is lower every year, is these clients will seek other routes and facilities.” Ramon Iglesias is the general manager of Roland and Mary Ann Martin’s Marina and Resort in Clewiston. He said fishing clubs are canceling tournaments “and fishing other lakes. Others who plan to fish here are canceling their reservations. That adds up to lost room nights all around the lake, and lost business at area tackle shops and fuel sales.” Lake Okeechobee is home to scores of wildlife ranging from marsh rabbits to wading birds and ducks to perhaps its most famous resident – the alligator. Low or high water don’t impact alligator populations too dramatically, said Arnold Brunell, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s alligator management program. “They’re pretty adaptable,” Brunell said. “Sometimes, during extended periods of low water, there can be more cannibalism of smaller alligators by larger ones. But once they reach adult status, about 6 feet in length, they’re pretty immune to any kind of depredation.” High water or extremely low water levels during the egg-laying season in May and LAKE OKEECHOBEE / PAGE 13