By Andy Reid, Sun Sentinel 
“Toxic” and “scum” are not words that the Chamber of Commerce likes to see associated with Florida’s waterfront lifestyle.
Yet draining Lake Okeechobee to protect South Florida from flooding has been blamed by coastal communities for portions of rivers, near Fort Myers and Stuart, periodically being off limits to swimmers, fishermen and others due to health risks.
The Army Corps of Engineers is in a race to lower the lake in time for the summer storm season that officially begins June 1. Lowering the lake now creates more room to hold water expected during the rainy months to come.
That involves dumping lake water west into the Caloosahatchee River and east into the St. Lucie River, which can bring unintended consequences.
On Friday, the W.P. Franklin South Recreation Area along the Caloosahatchee River was closed to swimmers due to a toxic algae bloom found in “scum” hugging the surface and at risk of reaching the waterfront park in the path of the lake draining.
Rash, nausea and even liver damage are among the human health risks of toxic algae blooms.
“Public safety is our highest priority,” Steve Dunham, chief of the Army Corps of Engineers’ Florida office, which controls Lake Okeechobee draining, said in a statement released Friday. “We will request (state officials) to conduct weekly tests until the issue is resolved.”
Despite the water-quality problems, the Army Corps is continuing to drain Lake Okeechobee water to the east and west and out to sea because of the flooding risk the lake poses to South Florida.
The Army Corps this week is draining about 1 billion gallons of water per day to the east and west total. That’s enough to fill nearly 1,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools per day.
“The discharges from the lake (are) bringing the algae with it,” said Mark Perry, of the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart, where lake water drains out to sea. “If the water is green, stay away from it. … It is a health risk.”
The Army Corps maintains that algae blooms, which can kill fish and seagrass beds as well as pose a human health risk, can occur anywhere and are not necessarily happening because of draining Lake Okeechobee.
Lowering the lake, and easing the strain on the troubled dike that protects South Florida from flooding, has to be the top public safety concern, according to the Army Corps.
“With everything, there is a risk and reward,” Army Corps spokesman John Campbell said about the need to keep lowering the lake. “Lake Okeechobee is not the only place that has algae blooms.”
On Tuesday the lake was 12.99 feet above sea level. The Army Corps tries to keep the lake between 12.5 and 15.5 feet, aiming to be at the lower end of that range by June 1.
To lower the lake, the Army Corps since January has been draining extra water west and east.
Dumping that water through the rivers helps ease the strain on the lake’s erosion-prone dike, considered one of the country’s most at risk of failing.
But high-level lake draining to the east and west coasts damages the delicate balance of freshwater and saltwater in the estuaries and can kill coastal fishing grounds. In addition, the lake dumping can worsen the toxic algae blooms that make water unsafe for human contact.
An algae bloom earlier this month prompted the Army Corps to hold off on lake discharges into the St. Lucie River. But the lake draining resumed a week later because of concerns about rising lake waters.
The Army Corps maintains that lake discharges can help break up algae blooms, but coastal advocates warn that they can also move the water-quality problems into the estuaries.
Everglades restoration is billed as the long-term solution to the Lake Okeechobee water management woes.
Before decades of draining to make way for South Florida development and farming, water used to naturally overlap Lake Okeechobee’s banks and flow south to replenish the Everglades.
Everglades restoration calls for building reservoirs and water-treatment areas to once again send more lake water south instead of dumping it to the east and west.
Yet politics, funding delays and court fights have hampered Everglades restoration. This month, the South Florida Water Management District balked at pursuing a deal to buy more Big Sugar land south of the lake that could be turned into a reservoir. Also, repairs to Lake Okeechobee’s ailing dike could be decades away from completion.
“We are stuck with the status quo, too much or too dirty water. It’s a shame,” said Jennifer Hecker, of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida environmental group. “The only way around that is to build the Everglades (restoration) projects.”
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-lake-water-health-scare-20150526-story.html