St. Lucie River

A traffic bridge over the Indian River Lagoon on Florida's East Coast, a waterway environmentalists continue to work to clean after decades of releases of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee scheduled to begin again Dec. 7

Billions of gallons of water being released from Lake Okeechobee to lower depth 4 feet

Tom Bayles

LOSOM was a hard-fought win for environmentalists was those key components the nonprofits believed would reduce the need for emergency discharges that have previously caused ecological damage

Soon, the only thing traveling through the Port Mayaca Lock and Dam will be boats, as releases of water from Lake Okeechobee through Port Mayaca into the St. Lucie Canal will all but cease under the new management plan for distributing excess water from the lake

Environment

Moving how much water, where, when: A new guide for Lake O

Tom Bayles

The new plan to manage the water flow from Lake Okeechobee throughout the Everglades is making its final rounds among various higher-ups before expected approval in the fall.

The Army Corps has closed floodgates like this one, shown open during the release of tens of billions of gallons of polluted water from Lake Okeechobee during the past six weeks, to allow the environment to recover; whether the gates will reopen will be decided later this week

Environment

Army Corps puts two-week hold on polluted Lake O water flowing into Caloosahatchee

Tom Bayles

The Army Corps of Engineers has stopped releasing 3.5 million gallons of water every day from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee River for two weeks to allow the environment to recover

Water released from Lake Okeechobee flows through spillways at Port Myaca before heading east down the St. Lucie River before emptying into the Atlantic OCean through the Indian River Lagoon. This process is part of the broader water management system in South Florida, which is designed to manage flood control and water quality, among other objectives. However, these water releases have been a subject of concern for their environmental impacts, particularly regarding water quality issues in the St. Lucie River and the Indian River Lagoon on the east coast and the Caloosahatchee River on the west coast

Environment

Water Quality Report: Lowering Lake Okeechobee underway

Tom Bayles

Lake O is so polluted with centuries-worth of phosphorous and nitrogen from agriculture runoff that water released from the lake down our Caloosahatchee River, or to the east down the St. Lucie River, carries bad stuff with it.

Spillways from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers will look like this on Saturday morning when the Army Corps of Engineers open the floodgates on the spillways to the east and west, and to Lake Worth Lagoon to the south

Environment

Lowering Lake Okeechobee before the rainy season is going to be a rush

Tom Bayles

The Army Corps of Engineers is planning to open three spillways in the dike surrounding Lake Okeechobee this weekend

Is Sending Lake O's Water South the Solution to Toxic Discharges?

Valerie Vande Panne

The Army Corps of Engineers has been releasing water from Lake Okeechobee as Tropical Storm Eta bears down on South Florida. This can be problematic in more ways than one.

ACLU Alleges State Failed Floridians in Response to 2016 Toxic Algae Blooms

Matthew F Smith

The ACLU of Florida has wrapped up a months-long investigation into how the state handled last year’s toxic algal blooms; the result of discharges from…

Questions, Resistance to Proposed Land Buy South of Lake O

Matthew F Smith

A water resources bill in front of Florida lawmakers is proposing the State of Florida buy roughly 60,000 acres of land Lake Okeechobee to store excess…

Environment

Gov. Scott Points Finger at Feds over South Florida Water Woes

John Davis

Governor Rick Scott and Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson were both in Southwest Florida Friday. While Nelson met with local elected officials to…