We Need Your Help! Speak Up for the Caloosahatchee!

Action Alert August 2, 2013

We Need Your Help!  Speak Up for the Caloosahatchee!

Wow!  The rains of 2013 are on track to set wet season records and have broken the string of drought years Florida has suffered since 2007.   SCCF is monitoring and tracking water conditions and, with our west coast partners, we are providing information about what is happening to our river, estuary and coastal waters to educate and empower water managers and elected officials to take action.   Photo right above:  Redfish Pass on July 10 We need your help now to speak up for the health of our natural communities, our local economy and our quality of life.   Here is a synopsis of what’s happening, why it’s happening and what we can each do to change the current course.  We hope you will help us and take action. What's Going On with Our Water? How You Can Help! Take Action!  Attend Trey Radel's Listening Session on August 7 Take Action!  Demand the SFWMD Deliver on Promises Take Action!  Follow Senator Negron's Senate Committee What's Going On with Our Water  A wet spring and very wet early summer have delivered more rain than the greater Everglades ecosystem -- that stretches from Orlando to Florida Bay, Fort Myers to Stuart -- can hold.   So a lot of freshwater is running into the Kissimmee River and then into Lake Okeechobee, where water levels are high and endangering the Dike around the lake.   The excess water, no longer able to flow south because of sugarcane and crops growing in the EAA (Everglades Agricultural Area), is shunted west to the Caloosahatchee estuary and east to the St. Lucie estuary.   The impact is the same on both coasts: lethal levels of freshwater are killing and displacing marine life including oysters and seagrass that cannot move out of the way and fish and shellfish nursery is lost, washed out into the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.   This excess freshwater is running off the land so fast it carries tannins from plants and other organic material with it, causing the unusually dark water.   Flood control projects that began in the 1940s were designed to drain water off the land to accommodate growth and development in south Florida.  So the high rainfall this year has saturated the land with water, raised water levels in Lake Okeechobee and necessitated water releases to lower the lake.    The excess water is coming from both the Caloosahatchee watershed in Lee, Hendry and Glades Counties as well as from Lake O releases.  The solutions are twofold:  to increase storage throughout the system and redirect water to more historic flow patterns.  Learn more on our website Access weekly Caloosahatchee Condition Reports Thanks for stepping up and speaking out.  Together we can change the way it’s always been done! How You Can Help!  Drainage projects created 70 years ago for flood control no longer serve our state or community interest or economies.   Short term and long term solutions are needed at both the Federal and State levels to change the outcomes and prevent devastation of our marine life, beaches, local economies and quality of life.  This is our legacy; this is our heritage to next generations.  Changes are needed NOW.   Take Action!  Attend Trey Radel's Listening Session Attend U.S. Representative Trey Radel's listening session Wednesday, August 7 at Edison College,  6-7 pm, Building U Room 102, 8099 College Parkway Tell him we need the U.S. House to pass a WRDA bill.  A Water Resources Development Act bill is the only way to get water projects approved for construction and funding across the nation.  It has been six years since the last WRDA and it is needed to authorize long term storage projects to help reduce high flow conditions.  Two needed projects are the C43 reservoir for the Caloosahatchee and Central Everglades Planning Project (CEPP), to once again flow water south to the Everglades.   Come, speak up on Wednesday and write a letter to our U.S. House Representatives (form for Trey Radel)  (form for Thomas Rooney)    Take Action!  Demand the SFWMD Deliver on Promises Demand that the SFWMD Implement Planned Storage Projects and Update their Operations Since 2005 when the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) promised new storage projects to prevent the disaster of 2004-2005, there is not one project constructed or operational in the Caloosahatchee watershed.   Please email:  (SFWMD Governing Board and Interim Executive Director Ernie Barnett)  (Governor Scott)   (DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard)   (Senator Benacquisto)   (Rep. Matt Caldwell) Explain that too much water is coming from both the Caloosahatchee watershed and Lake O. Demand that storage projects in planning over the past seven years be operational by next year’s wet season in the Caloosahatchee and Kissimmee watersheds to capture, store and treat water to reduce these high flows.  Request that they revise operational schedules to change the timing and increase storage in the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes and increase water held in the EAA (Everglades Agricultural Area), and stop all backflowing/pumping into Lake O.   Take Action!  Follow Senator Negron's Senate Committee The first hearing on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee basin is August 22nd  from 1-9 pm  in Stuart at the Charles and Rae Kane Center, 900 SE Salermo Road, Stuart, Florida  24997     Tel:  772.223.7800 Insist that the Caloosahatchee be included in the scope of the hearings, and press for the implementation of federal and state solutions to these issues.

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