Low water levels allow muck removal, habitat restoration along shoreline

West Palm Beach, FL — Taking advantage of a rare opportunity in the midst of a record drought, South Florida water managers are removing tons of phosphorus-laden muck from Lake Okeechobee to restore critical aquatic habitats. Extremely low water levels have exposed hundreds of shoreline acres of nutrient-rich muck soil, which workers are scraping and hauling away to vastly improve the health of the 730-square mile lake. The South Florida Water Management District's Governing Board this month released $11 million in emergency funds to remove muck from six large sites around the lake.

"Removing the sediment from Lake Okeechobee will provide environmental and economical benefits for this area and the Greater Everglades Ecosystem," said Tim Rach, Florida Department of Environmental Protection Assistant Southeast District Director. “I would like to thank the South Florida Water Management District Governing Board for their leadership and the interagency team for their quick actions to get this important and beneficial work started."

"Drought emergencies usually bring challenges and problems," added Eric Buermann, newly elected Chairman of the Governing Board. “But in this case, the drought has provided an excellent, unexpected opportunity. Lake Okeechobee's exposed shoreline allows us to remove accumulated muck in the lake so that plants and fish can thrive when the rains return."

Muck soils, composed of highly decomposed organic matter, cover most of the lake bed at depths of more than a foot. During storms, the soils are easily stirred up, lowering water clarity and preventing sunlight from reaching plants. After two active hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005, Lake Okeechobee remained mud-colored for many months, and large areas of submerged aquatic vegetation disappeared. The upcoming hurricane season, which starts June 1, is predicted to be very active, with the likelihood of 13 to 17 named storms, according to experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Once the muck is removed and lake levels return to normal, native plants such as tape grass, spike rush, bulrush and Kissimmee grass will rapidly grow and thrive along the clear, sandy shoreline. These areas are ideal spawning and nursery grounds for sport fish such as bass and crappie. They also are prime habitat for apple snails, the primary food source of the federally endangered snail kite, a medium-size hawk native to South Florida.

Workers use front-end loaders and dump trucks to scrape and haul the muck from the southeast United States' largest lake. Over the next three months, millions of cubic yards of muck will be hauled away. From just a single site, Fisheating Bay, more than 27,000 truckloads -- or 500,000 cubic yards -- of sediment will be dredged from 800 acres of exposed lake bed. Disposal is being coordinated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and regional landowners, who have expressed interest in applying the rich muck soils to their properties.

"An added benefit is that we are removing some phosphorus with the muck," said Dr. Susan Gray, Lake Okeechobee Program Director at the South Florida Water Management District. “About 280 tons of phosphorus will be removed from the lake in these sediments, equating to more than 11/2 year's worth of downstream treatment by our 40,000 acres of constructed treatment wetlands."

The lake's water level, currently at 9.2 feet NGVD, is fast approaching the all-time record low, set during the 2001 drought at 8.97 feet NGVD. (National Geodetic Vertical Datum, or NGVD, is a nationally established coordinate system used to determine elevation, especially in areas close to sea level.) Just 41 inches of rain have fallen across the 16-county region over the last 12 months -- more than 10 inches below the annual average.