Lee County mayors bring SFWMD before judge

Too much during rainy season and not enough during the dry season, there is a big push to balance out the Lake Okeechobee water releases sent to Lee County. Members of the public have voiced their concerns.

Mayors in Lee County brought the South Florida Water Management District before a judge on Monday at the local district building.

People like Sanibel business owner Richard Johnson said a lot was riding on the hearing. He said the Lake O releases have destroyed his quality of life, blaming the water crisis for scaring away tourists from visiting the area.

“I’ve seen this repeatedly year-after-year,” Johnson said. “And if we don’t make better decisions on how we manage our water resources in the state of Florida, this is going to happen again-and-again. It’s going to be more frequent and is going to be more severe.”

This is something many people who spoke at the hearing on Monday don’t want.

“Just the part of the process that we go through to make sure that we’re making good decisions in our community as well as the South Florida Water Management District when it comes to our environment,” Johnson said.

The water management district established a minimum flow level of 400 cubic feet per second during the dry season. The mayors of Sanibel Island, Fort Myers and Cape Coral want more than double that during the dry times in hopes of lower discharges during the rainy season. The district said it held several public hearings before establishing this rule.

“For responding to public comments, even when they weren’t supported by any scientific reasons, our teams still went through and evaluated additional science to try and answer those questions,” Donald Medellin said.

Johnson does not agree.

“I gotta tell ya,” Johnson said. “I got the feeling that they were just allowing me to speak but weren’t interested in listening to what I had to say.”