Florida officials will attempt to clean and store as much as 1.3 million acre-feet of water in reservoirs and deep underground aquifers in the northern reaches of the Everglades under a new draft restoration plan released by state water managers last week.

The "Lake Okeechobee Watershed Construction Phase II Technical Plan," issued by the South Florida Water Management District, attempts to solve two of the greatest challenges facing the Everglades ecosystem: reversing decades of deteriorating water quality in the northern half of the ecosystem while also controlling water flows out of Lake Okeechobee to mimic hydrologic conditions that existed prior to human settlement.

"The plan represents the best blueprint for achieving water quality standards while better managing lake levels," the district said in a statement.

Lake Okeechobee serves as the primary headwaters of the Everglades, providing billions of gallons of water to the marsh annually through a complex system of canals and spillways.

But agricultural runoff fouled the lake and sprawling suburban development and wetland-drainage schemes have created a series of intractable problems for the broader Everglades ecosystem. The lake is overfertilized, and its aquatic life is smothering in oxygen-deprived water.

Water managers say the new plan will target the most problematic pollutant, phosphorus, by tightening controls on runoff from land, golf courses and suburban lawns, as well as improving agricultural management practices on more than 1.3 million acres of farmland north of the lake.

Water storage, treatment

But water storage and treatment remain the top priority. If successful, officials say such projects will aid not only in restoring the lower Everglades, but will ease pollution pressure on two critical estuaries -- St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee -- where for years water managers have discharged excess water to maintain safe lake levels in Okeechobee.

"For a long time we've been looking at the Everglades south of the lake, but this whole system is connected from Disney World south," said Randy Smith, a SFWMD spokesman. "If we get this done, it will have great benefit to those estuaries on either side of the lake."

Paul Gray, science coordinator for the Audubon Society's Lake Okeechobee program and a member of the technical committee charged with drafting the plan, called the effort "bold and ambitious." But he said it provides the last and perhaps best opportunity to save both the lake and massive wetland just south of it, including Everglades National Park.

"The first step is getting the water under control," Gray said. "Once it's stored, you can move the water where you want, when you want, and it's not making the lake any dirtier. After we get the lake cleaned up, we should be able to make some progress in solving the pollution issue downstream."

Complications

It sounds simple, but executing the plan will be anything but easy. Planners expect the Phase II storage and filtration projects to cost well over $1 billion, and a number of critical engineering questions remain, including the feasibility of drilling deep water storage wells on Lake Okeechobee's northern rim.

Early test drills revealed elevated arsenic levels in some wells, and other technical issues proved to make drilling more expensive than initially thought. Smith, the district spokesman, said it may take several more years of testing before the deep-well injection option becomes viable.

A second option for water storage involves creating massive new surface reservoirs north of Okeechobee, but that option will require either purchasing or leasing of large swaths of private land, much of it used for cattle-calf operations.

As of Sept. 30, the state had acquired 12,378 of the roughly 38,500 acres it seeks for such projects in the Okeechobee Basin at a cost of just over $82 million. The remaining acreage is expected to cost upward of $160 million based on current land prices, according to SFWMD.

Eric Buermann, chairman of the SFWMD's governing board, described the draft plan, which requires approval from the Florida Legislature, as a "cost-effective plan that will build upon the work already under way" to improve conditions in the northern Everglades.

The plan is due to the legislature by Feb. 1, with initial projects expected to begin in the spring, officials said. The more technically challenging parts of the plan, including the construction of deep-well aquifers, would likely begin after 2010, according to SFWMD.

Click here for more information on the Northern Everglades program.