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Tag: water management
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  • December

    Jacksonville Commander announces Lake Okeechobee Dry Season Strategy

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (Dec. 28, 2022) During the height of hurricane emergency response efforts from Ian and Nicole, our decisions were easy to reduce immediate impacts. Now, the question of how to manage all the water in Lake Okeechobee is upon us, and the solution is not an easy one.
  • June

    Col. Kelly on Lake Okeechobee: balancing project purposes

    One of the challenges we face at the Jacksonville District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is balancing all of the purposes of managing Lake Okeechobee given to us by Congress – flood control, water supply, navigation, recreation, and preservation of fish and wildlife resources. As we enter rainy season, we will keep focusing on balancing the purposes of lake water management and setting favorable conditions.
  • Lake Okeechobee Update for 2020 Rainy Season

    After a drier than normal dry season, Lake Okeechobee operations transition to rainy season without plans for imminent large releases to estuaries.
  • March

    USACE continues work on LORS deviation

    After he took charge of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Jacksonville District in 2018, Col. Andrew Kelly charged his team to look for tools that would offer different options for the management of water in Lake Okeechobee during times when harmful algal blooms (HABs) were present. Significant HAB events affected Lake Okeechobee and the coastal estuaries in 2016 and 2018. Jacksonville District engineers and biologists reviewed the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule (LORS) and looked for potential tools to adjust operations in anticipation of possible future HAB events. Last summer, Jacksonville District rolled out a proposed deviation to LORS that would provide greater flexibility in the management of water with the goal of reducing the health risk to the public associated with HABs.
  • December

    USACE updates dry-season approach for Lake Okeechobee

    The water management team at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is now focused on the year ahead and the challenges that we face. Unlike last year, our focus this year will be on retaining water during the dry season.
  • November

    A successful year for Lake Okeechobee

    At this time last year, Jacksonville District was a month into executing operational flexibility for Lake Okeechobee aimed at drawing the lake down. What a difference a year makes.
  • August

    Progress through working together

    The nation is at its best when we work together to tackle challenges that we face. We understand the frustration that many feel but do not lose sight of the fact that we are making tangible progress. With your continued valuable input, we will maintain the increasing momentum towards success. Working together, we can restore America’s Everglades and build an improved water management system that better meets the multiple water needs of Floridians in the 21st Century and beyond.
  • June

    Why we release water

    One of the primary reasons we release water is to reduce flood risk for people living and working around the lake, in which the potential for inflows far exceeds (six times greater) our capacity for outflow.
  • May

    Lake O water levels fall to start 2017

    An extended period of dry weather since Hurricane Matthew in October has caused the water level in Lake Okeechobee to steadily recede over the past six months. This, in sharp comparison to last year’s dry season that contained some of the wettest months ever recorded in the region.
  • July

    Corps must remain vigilant in managing Lake O

    Water—in south Florida, we either have too much or too little. For most of 2016, heavy rains fueled by El Nino mean we’ve had too much. The flood control system operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District has prevented loss of life and major widespread property damage so far this year. However, we remain concerned about how much rain may fall and where that water can go without causing impacts that have the potential to be worse than current conditions in south Florida estuaries.
  • Water managers prepare for wet season

    An early start to the wet season in 2013 kept the lake from dropping below 13 feet – its lowest point last year was 13.29 feet on May 27. The loss of water storage capacity became evident when the lake started rising, and the district was left with little choice but to discharge the water in case a tropical system developed that would result in additional heavy rains.
  • May

    Water managers prepare for wet season

    A different challenge facing water managers this year surrounds Lake Okeechobee and a higher water level this year, when compared to the previous two years. On April 23, the lake level was 13.59 feet, more than two feet higher than it was on the same date in 2011 and 2012. The lake has stayed within the Corps’ preferred range of 12.5 and 15.5 feet all winter. As a result, the district has been able to provide regular discharges of water to meet a wide variety of needs, including releases to the Caloosahatchee Estuary to keep the saltwater-freshwater mix in an acceptable range.
  • April

    USACE begins Dam Safety Modification Study on Herbert Hoover Dike

    “The Dam Safety Modification Study is a comprehensive, system-wide study intended to identify risks in the system, and to recommend the necessary measures that can reduce the risk of failure,” said Tim Willadsen, HHD project manager. While certain sections of the dike have been studied before, HHD has never undergone a review this comprehensive and detailed. Each segment of the dike will be thoroughly reviewed for its geology and geometry, with particular attention given to scenarios that would cause the dike to fail.
  • January

    Milestones reached at Herbert Hoover Dike as dedication to water management balance continues

    The past year saw both low water and high water at Lake Okeechobee, as well as completion of one project and the start of others on Herbert Hoover Dike (HHD). The best news occurred in October, when the last section of cutoff wall in the dike between Port Mayaca and Belle Glade was accepted by Jacksonville District construction representatives. The action meant 21.4 miles of cutoff wall that had been under construction since 2007 was in place, reducing the risk of failure for the southeast portion of the dike.