A proposed "Zone D diet" for Lake Okeechobee could prevent or substantially lessen discharge damages to the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. This management policy would order reduction of the lake height whenever it hits Zone D. Low-volume flows would keep the lake from rising to heights that then require up to 9 billion gallons a day in releases to the rivers, more water that the entire state uses in a 24-hour period.

Slow Lake Discharges with 'Zone D Diet'

Let's put Florida on a Zone D diet. Quickly.

Here's a diet that would really work to prevent most of the freshwater mudbaths that periodically plague our estuaries and Lake Okeechobee.

Horrendous freshwater discharges send as much as 9 billion (that's billion, not million) gallons of water a day to the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie rivers after first drowning out the life system of Lake O.

The outrageous discharges cause untold millions of dollars of socioeconomic damages. And certainly the natural health of the ecology is priceless.

A simple policy directive could bring quick relief.

Engineer Kevin Henderson of the St. Lucie River Initiative reports that what we'll call the Zone D diet would improve Lake O health and lessen discharges to the estuaries.

"Computer models (trial runs by computer) conducted by the water management district itself show that if water were discharged in small amounts whenever the lake is up in Zone D, benefits to both the lake and estuaries are significant," Henderson said.

Zone D in the lake water world refers to a water level of between 13.5 and 15.5 feet above sea level. The heights vary somewhat according to time of year. Zones A, B and C are the higher levels that ultimately cause discharge troubles.

Susan Gray of the South Florida Water Management District confirmed that recent computer modeling has shown the potential protective benefits of making periodic small releases.

It's like living with controlled and manageable bleeding instead of suffering the massive life-threatening hemorrhages that sicken and drive away aquatic and marine life.

The Zone D diet may be thought of as a component of the Safe Level Plan described in an Openers Column in May and unanimously endorsed in principle by the Rivers Coalition in Stuart.

But isn't the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan supposed to eliminate all the discharges and fix all this nonsense?

Correct. The $8 billion system of reservoirs and wetlands enhancements is projected to stop excessive drainage, and there's no doubt among most environmentalists that CERP, including its Indian River Lagoon Plan, can be a major, historic benefit for the state. Go for it.

But.

The full impact of CERP will be realized many years down the pike.

Meantime, better water level management can produce huge benefits this very year, and in years to follow.

Consistent lower-water averages would get us out of a yo-yo syndrome in which we face miserable conditions during heavy-discharge months followed by greatly improved fishing circumstances later on, as detailed this month in an article about Lake Okeechobee.

The Florida Drainage Machine's roots go back more than a half century when the River of Grass south of the lake was destroyed basically as a land reclamation scheme for agriculture and development. (There was an element of flood protection, but that could have been accomplished without sucking away the River of Grass.)

Drainage seemed like a neat, progressive idea at the time, an idea that bloomed with new fervor as a handful of Cuban sugar barons exiled to Florida in 1960 and teamed with influential Floridians to create the EAA sugar fields that then slowly but surely destroyed the soggy but vital marshes.

It was claimed that Florida's sugar development would cripple Cuba's sugar economy and drive out Fidel Castro. Support for Big Sugar came from the highest of places, including Florida's top U.S. senator at the time, George Smathers, who was one of the nation's most influential politicians. Little wonder that Smathers earned a chair on Big Sugar's board of directors and enjoyed a mansion at plush Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic.

Big Sugar today retains the political clout that even now blocks quick action to fix lake and estuary woes.

Sugar is our most powerful obfuscator.