The Caloosahatchee Estuary is a vibrant, brackish system, the first westward outlet for Lake Okeechobee water. It’s also an instance of some of the pernicious challenges of Everglades Restoration: an excessive amount of water when it isn’t wanted, and too little water when it’s. Oysters, seagrasses, and different estuarine species depend on a wholesome vary of salinity.
Lake Okeechobee releases throughout occasions of excessive rainfall quickly drive salinity ranges harmfully low, and through droughts, like these skilled this yr, the other downside happens. Lowered freshwater flows permit salinity ranges to spike, and when these circumstances persist, the system sustains lasting harm.
In the long run, this can be addressed by increasing water storage and therapy capability to carry water when there may be an excessive amount of for the estuary and ship extra when it wants it.
Within the short-term, the South Florida Water Administration District (SFWMD) and U.S. Military Corps of Engineers (the Corps) battle to stability the water wants of agricultural pursuits south of the lake with the water wants of the Caloosahatchee Estuary. The lake’s water administration plan, LOSOM, prescribes circulate ranges aimed to stability each pursuits. Sadly, this spring the Corps, on the request of the SFWMD, didn’t present the flows to the Caloosahatchee prescribed by LOSOM. As an alternative, fearing extended drought that may scale back water availability for agriculture, the businesses carried out dangerous circulate reductions, inflicting the estuary to endure a “Minimal Movement exceedance” — hurt that can require years of restoration.
As we strategy the tip of the dry season, the water scarcity feared by the businesses has not materialized, and the hurt to the Caloosahatchee and its ecology was for naught.
Audubon continues to name for water for the setting to obtain equal consideration with agricultural use, guaranteeing that ecological techniques aren’t pressured to bear dangerous reductions until different water customers are additionally required to chop again their use.
Till the system can retailer and transfer water extra naturally, and till businesses prioritize water for environmental stewardship equally to human wants, our pure techniques will proceed to bear the results of this imbalance.
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2026 State of the Everglades Report.
