The South Florida Water Management District is planning to build 4,800-acres of wetlands near the mouth of the Kissimmee River designed to remove phosphorus from drainage areas with some of the highest nutrient pollution in the lake's watershed.
Directing the water on a winding path through the wetlands should allow plants, soil, and natural processes to remove a percentage of the phosphorus and other pollutants from the water entering Lake Okeechobee.
Too much phosphorus feeds things, including the toxic blue-green algae that plagues Lake Okeechobee.
A district notice says another goal of the project is to preserve existing flood protection for nearby communities.
The filtration ponds would be about three miles upstream from Lake Okeechobee, in an area where water has some of the highest phosphorus pollution levels in the lake's watershed.
The district says the environmental benefits are only projections at this time.
What’s not in the district’s announcement is the cost, when the treatment areas will be completed, or when they will start processing polluted water. Also missing are estimates, even percentages, of how much phosphorus will — and will not — be removed from the water.
The district has planned a public meeting on the Lower Kissimmee Basin Stormwater Treatment and Recreation Area Project on Thursday, Nov. 5, at the Indian River State College, Room B-111 of the Dixon-Hendry Campus, 2229 NW Ninth Ave. in Okeechobee.
After the meeting, staff from the district will be available to answer questions.
