Letter to Colonel Andrew Kelly, Commander and District Engineer, US Army Corp of Engineers - Steube Leads Florida Delegation in Defending Lake Okeechobee and Agriculture Communities After U.S. Army Corps LOSOM Announcement

Letter

Dear Colonel Kelly,

In response to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' request for input into Preliminary Preferred Plan
CC as part of the Lake Okeechobee Systems Operation Manual (LOSOM) development, we would
like to express our concerns related to the plan's ability to meet the Congressionally-authorized
Lake Okeechobee project purposes for water supply and the Lake's ecology. These project
purposes were mandated by Congress to ensure an availability of water for all of the necessary
uses for water from Lake Okeechobee. While Plan CC appears to meet certain project purposes
including flood control, navigation and recreation, it falls short on other purposes. In the case of
water supply, more than 7 million Floridians and thousands of businesses tied to tourism,
agriculture, healthcare and construction depend on water supply from Lake Okeechobee, and
expected that LOSOM would result in a plan that meets the water supply purpose by restoring the
water supply performance that existed prior to the current schedule. As such, prior to the final
selection of a LOSOM plan, we are requesting that the Corps explain how Preliminary Preferred
Plan CC will be adjusted to restore the water supply function on which we depend, and how
optimization will be performed to meet this serious deficit.

In addition to seeking assurances from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that the Preliminary
Preferred Plan CC can be optimized to meet the lake's project purposes, we are also concerned
that without such changes, Plan CC will result in significantly higher volumes of harmful Lake
Okeechobee discharges to the Caloosahatchee River. Throughout the LOSOM process, we have
heard the need for "shared adversity." However, as mentioned during public briefings, Plan CC
results in more frequent damaging discharges to the Caloosahatchee River in favor of fewer
discharges to the St. Lucie River Basin. Lake Okeechobee's ecology itself also seems to fare less
than our constituents expected under Plan CC. We strongly urge you to correct these disparities
as the plan is optimized.

Finally, any final LOSOM plan developed and adopted by the Corps should take advantage of the
additional capacity provided by the $2 billion worth of repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dike, which
is expected to be completed in late 2022. As mentioned in the 2015 University of Florida Water
Institute Report into options to reduce Lake Okeechobee discharges, adjustments in the operating
schedule to allow storing additional water in the lake would help reduce damaging Lake
Okeechobee discharges during the wet season.

Please know we appreciate your commitment to seeking public input throughout the LOSOM
process. The Lake Okeechobee watershed impacts millions of residents in 16 Florida counties and
as such, we hope the final optimized plan selected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will
provide the greatest benefit to the most water users throughout the entire ecosystem, and adhere to the mandates from Congress.

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