Tuesday, July 10, 2007
ROBERT UNDERBRINK, vice president of King Ranch, South Bay
In response to "Forget back-pumping" (editorial, June 28): Water from the farms is cleaner than water in Lake Okeechobee and could help avert a water-supply disaster next spring. Lake Okeechobee recently was at its lowest level ever, and conditions north of the lake are so dry that there is little prospect of the lake returning to normal levels this year. Incredibly, a Post editorial responded to this issue with an out of-date position on back-pumping.
With no flow from the Kissimmee Basin to the lake for the past eight months and with Lake Kissimmee almost 2 feet below schedule, there is no prospect of flow any time soon. The South Florida Water Management District's latest projections show that we could enter next year's dry season with the lake 2 feet below where it was at the start of the drought. The prospect of a water supply disaster for Southeast Florida is real.
This is not an issue just for the farms. Remember that just before the 2001 drought ended with heavy, late May rainfall, water utilities were forced to reduce water pressure to customers, nursery and landscape businesses were in trouble and large water-based businesses were hit with Phase III reductions. This year's drought forced West Palm Beach, which relies on Lake Okeechobee as a backup supply, to resort to mixing treated wastewater with water from the rock pits to meet residents' drinking-water demand.
Right now, we have one opportunity to help alleviate future drought damage. Capturing and pumping rainwater that falls south of Lake Okeechobee is the only man-made opportunity to add significant amounts of water to the lake at this critical juncture. Even in a dry summer, farms south of Lake Okeechobee in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) produce substantial quantities of water that can be stored in the lake to provide additional water supplies for South Florida.
The assumption that farm water somehow will harm the lake is false. In fact, water leaving the farms has less phosphorus than water released from the lake to the farms. Specifically, water released from the lake at the S-2 and S-3 pumps has nearly 100 parts per billion more phosphorus than the water leaving the farms in those basins. Farm water in the EAA is cleaner than lake water.
As a result of farmers investing tens of millions of dollars over the past decade implementing best management practices to reduce phosphorus, water leaving the farms has much lower phosphorus levels than water that flows into the lake from all other sources, according to water-quality testing.
The Post's claims that farm chemicals would harm the lake for drinking-water supplies ignores the fact that decades of water-quality data show no such thing. Pahokee and South Bay's water treatment plants had issues with their antiquated treatment process that had nothing whatsoever to do with farm chemicals. In fact, both plants have replaced chlorine with chloramine and fixed the problem.
In time of extreme drought, it is absurd to object to storing the cleanest water available while praying for rain north of the lake to provide it with water containing high concentrations of phosphorus. Furthermore, the decision to capture this cleaner water must be made now. The South Florida Water Management District can add as much as a foot to Lake Okeechobee's level if it pumps from July through October. Every month we delay is a lost opportunity to add cleaner water to the lake.
ROBERT UNDERBRINK, vice president
King Ranch
South Bay