State adopts 10-year, $750M plan to clean up Lake O

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has adopted a 10-year, $750 million plan to help rid Lake Okeechobee of excess nutrients.

Okeechobee has been plagued with nutrient pollution for decades, since developers connected the lake to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers as a way to lower the water table and drain South Florida. Sources of excess nutrients include farming operations, urban developments, fertilizer from residential neighborhoods and human and animal waste, the former of which is dried and used as fertilizer.

Environmental groups like Audubon Florida and the Everglades Foundation lauded the plan.

"The plan includes projects that significantly reduce harmful phosphorous entering the lake and requires verification of the effectiveness of pollution control practices," said Audubon Florida executive director Erik Draper in a statement.

The main goal is to reduce total phosphorus entering the lake by 33 percent by 2025.

The Lake Okeechobee watershed is about 1,800 square miles, which is larger than Rhode Island. Lands from as far north as the Orlando area drain south to Okeechobee, and some of that water is pumped from the lake to the west and east coasts.

For thousands of years the lake rose and fell each rainy season, allowing water to slowly flow over the South Florida landscape before emerging in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay. Rain water flowed very slowly in mass sheets over millions of acres just more than a century ago.

Today South Florida's drainage structures work too well, sending fresh water to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean at an unnatural rate. Millions of taxpayer dollars are spent yearly as a result. Drinking water aquifers are taxed and may soon be threatened by saltwater intrusion.

Restoring Lake Okeechobee has been discussed for decades, but water in the lake now is so polluted that it can't be legally discharged to any lands. The volume of phosphorus is one of the main challenges facing scientists and hydrologists working to restore the Everglades.

The first five years of the plan will include work to restore the Kissimmee River (north of the lake) and hybrid wetland treatment areas, dispersed water storage and stormwater treatment areas, according to DEP records.

Caches up for grabs

Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Naples has added a treasure hunting feature for visitors, a geocaching system that allows people to download a set of coordinates on a GPS and hit the trails with intentions.

A cache is typically a box containing anything from tiny plastic soldier toys to handwritten poems. They may be hidden under bushes or simply perched on a tree limb. Finders record their presence on a logbook and later Rookery Bay's geocaching website. Finders also typically take one trinket from the cache and leave one of their own, for another hunter to find.

Rookery Bay can be reached by calling 530-5958 or online at rookerybay.org.

— Compiled by Chad Gillis