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Public to Provide Input for Caloosahatchee Reservoir Study
mouth of Caloosahatchee River

Jan. 16, 2020

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) invites the public to provide input and ideas about additional water quality improvements for the Caloosahatchee Reservoir Project.  The Caloosahatchee Reservoir Water Quality Feasibility Study Working Group is seeking ideas about additional water quality treatment technologies that could be suitable for pre-treatment, in-reservoir treatment, and/or post-reservoir treatment applications to improve water quality. The second of four scheduled public meetings as part of the study is on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020, 2-4 p.m. at the Hendry County Extension Office at 1085 Pratt Blvd., LaBelle, FL 33976. The meeting will also be live streamed at SFWMD.gov.

The working group, including SFWMD, Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), Lee County, Hendry County, Lehigh Acres Municipal Services Improvement District (MSID), the city of Cape Coral, and the city of Sanibel, is engaged in a study to evaluate water quality opportunities to improve water quality as part of the Caloosahatchee Reservoir Project.

Public participation is critical as SFWMD seeks to identify at least three options that will be subsequently studied in more detail to provide additional water quality improvement for water that will leave the Caloosahatchee Reservoir, currently under construction. The study is one of the priority projects identified by Gov. Ron DeSantis in his Achieving More Now For Florida's Environment Executive Order to restore the Everglades and protect Florida's water resources.

In addition to several public meetings that will be held, the District has also created a website where the public can learn more about the study. The website can be found by clicking HERE. The website contains an e-mail address where the public can submit additional water quality treatment technologies to C43WaterQuality@sfwmd.gov.

The Caloosahatchee Reservoir will have a volume of approximately 170,000 acre-feet to store and release multiple times -- that volume of local basin stormwater runoff -- to reduce the need for releases to the Caloosahatchee Estuary during the wet season and provide water needed to balance salinity levels during the dry season.