Public invited to participate in Lake O study

Lake O area anglers, officials and longtime residents know the lake’s ecology is suffering. Most blame the same reasons for the decline in the submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) that provides critical habitat for the fisheries: High water and too much reliance on chemical herbicides to control invasive plants.

Lake Okeechobee area residents were invited to share their observations about the lake’s ecosystems and their suggestions to improve it in two public meetings Nov. 6 and 7.

In 2024, the Florida Legislature mandated and funded a study of the ecosystem’s health, to be conducted by a multi-university team lead by the Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University. Participating researchers included University of South Florida, Florida Atlantic University and Florida State University. The study team is required to report to the legislature in January 2025.

The primary goals of the study are to provide science-based recommendations for the short-term and long-term projects to restore or improve the health of plants, fish and wildlife and improve the submerged aquatic habitat (SAV) in the lake.

During the Nov. 6 meeting in Clewiston, anglers brought up familiar complaints. They argued Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) contractors spray poisonous herbicides indiscriminately. They said the dead plants killed by the chemical spraying fall to the lake bottom and create a muck layer that ruins the habitat for the fish spawning areas. They also pointed out the high water levels under the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM) keep the lake unnaturally high.

Longtime residents spoke of the reed wall that once protected the marshes from turbulence, resulting in “gin clear” water and plentiful SAV closer to the shoreline.  These beneficial plants cannot survive the combination of the muck bottom and the high water levels. Without this wall of protective plants, the wind keeps the water stirred up, which means less sunlight reaches the lake bottom.

“Turbidity is one of the things that reduces clarity,” said Lawrence Glenn of the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD). “We’re trying to take a look at what’s in the turbidity and what we can do about it.”

Hendry County Commissioner Ramon Iglesias said they need to get the water level down and plant more vegetation on the lake.

“If you don’t get vegetation on that lake within this year, the conversations we are having are moot,” he said.

 Karson Turner said a massive wall of cattails once protected Coot Bay. “You could go to Coot Bay and find gin clear water,” he recalled.

“In 2021, Tin House Cove had a good amount of eel grass,” said Iglesias. “Now there isn’t any.”

Glenn said the lake has about 3,200 acres of SAV, “but there’s no chara. It’s all vascular.” Chara (sometimes called muskgrass) can only grow during a short period of time, he explained. “We know the conditions aren’t right for growing. It’s too deep, too turbulent.”

Suggestions shared at the Clewiston meeting included:

• Try an experiment using man-made turbidity barriers to protect three sections of the shoreline. Remove the muck behind one barrier and plant SAV. Leave the muck where it is behind another barrier. On the third barrier, try a mixture, removing half of the muck.
• Establish a fund of at least $25 million dedicated to improving the lake habitat. Have that money available so that it can be used on short notice to fund improvements such as de-mucking when water levels fall low enough to do the work. Low water levels provided by Mother Nature are unpredictable and short.
• Dredge, scrape or vacuum the muck out of the bottom of the lake. Removing the muck layer would remove nutrient load from the lake, improve the habitat for fish and leave more capacity in the lake for water.
• Use mechanical harvesters to keep locks and navigation lanes clear.

At the Nov. 7 meeting in Okeechobee, the comments and suggestions were similar. The primary problem, they argued, is lake level. The Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule (LORS) set in 2008, tried to keep the lake below 15.5 feet. The current Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM), allows lake levels up to 17 feet.

Newton Cook, of United Waterfowlers, said if the lake level is above 13 feet, the SAV will not sprout.

“If you exclude the lake level, this is a waste of time,” argued one angler.  

“I know the muck has been bad,” said Okeechobee Mayor Dowling Watford. It has been worse every year since 2010, he added.

“When I was a kid, it was a sand bottom,” said Glades County Commissioner Tim Stanley. He said the lake was also full of hydrilla. Even the Rim Canal was full of hydrilla, he added. While the high lake levels explain why the lake hydrilla died, that doesn’t explain why the plant is no longer found in the Rim Canal, he added.

“I’ve asked FWC to plant some plots of hydrilla and screen it,” Stanley continued. “I don’t believe the spraying is killing the hydrilla. Is it too hot?”

“There are no ducks left on the lake because there’s no food,” said a hunter. “Even if we get this back, it will take ten years to get the ducks back.”

“If they aren’t going to lower the lake, need to plant something that can live in the high water,” Stanley suggested. Even if it is an invasive plant, the lake needs SAV, both to clean the water and to provide habitat for fish.

“Until you clean the water, the SAV is not going to grow back,” said Jim Watt.

 Suggestions offered at the Okeechobee meeting included:

• Keep the lake below 13 feet for at least 90 days a year.
• Reduce the use of chemical herbicides on Lake Okeechobee.
• Remove the dead vegetation and muck from the bottom of the lake.
• Fund septic-to-sewer conversion projects to reduce the nutrient load from human waste in the water that drains into Lake Okeechobee from Orlando south.
• Follow the method proven successful in Louisiana: Draw down the lake once every five years.
• Build more water storage features north of Lake Okeechobee – including a aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) wells, above ground reservoirs and water farming projects – to slow the flow into Lake O.

The public is encouraged to participate in the study. To add your comments, go online to LakeOStudy.com.