Lake Okeechobee reservoir approved by SFWMD
The Lake Okeechobee reservoir has been approved by the South Florida Water Management District.
The board unanimously approved the design that is expected to reduce Lake O discharges by over 50-percent.
The reservoir will hold extra water. Then, a treatment facility will clean the water before sending it south to the Everglades.
Some environmental groups were wary about the design, fearing that the treatment facility wouldn’t get the water clean enough to meet federal standards. But many of those same groups supported the design in the end, after the Department of Environmental Protection announced this week that additional actions would be taken if the water wasn’t clean enough.
The design now goes before the Army Corp of Engineers.