May 13, 2010
PURRE Chairman Michael Valiquette appeared live this morning on Fox-4 Rising to discuss the water releases from Lake Okeechobee.
Mike confirmed what we all know:
"With the amount of water that's in the lake right now, about 15 feet compared to about 10 feet two years ago ... they're definitely going to dump water off that lake and there's nothing we can do about it."
The Army Corps needs to fix the Herbert Hoover Dike, Mike stressed, but the South Florida Water Management District promised five years ago to provide 450,000 acre-feet of water storage area. "They never came up with that land," Mike stated.
"Most importantly, the Water Management District has control of the U.S. Sugar land purchase now, and if they can get their hands on that land and bring in online, we have immediate storage areas," Mike continued. "Also we can have a flowway south which is what we've been pushing for for five years, as well as a spillway between the two westernmost canals feeding into the Everglades Agricultural Area. If they can put a spillway there in the 15 to 15-1/2 foot range that will automatically release water from the lake into a flowway south, our problem is solved."
Here is the link to view the interview:
