In an e-mail sent out to members, the Sanibel Chamber of Commerce and the Fort Myers Beach Chamber say the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is managing Lake Okeechobee water levels based on a flawed operating system. They’re asking locals to take action and e-mail the Corps. Here’s how…
The chamber e-mail says that the operating system the Army Corps now uses prioritizes the needs of special interests at the expense of all others. “All too often, this leads to high-volume, damaging discharges to the coastal estuaries during the rainy season.”
The Corps is writing a new manual called the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual, but, according to the both Chambers, the proposed models still fail to represent all system components equally.
Both organizations are linking to a Captains For Clean Water page asking local residents to fill out THIS FORM requesting the Corps to include a strategy that distributes the water fairly among all users in order to reduce harm.
Captains for Clean Water also released a May 14th video HERE of a press conference held last week at the Edison House in Fort Myers with Governor DeSantis to discuss the issue.