10/24/2019
BIG WATER
FROM THE KISSIMMEE RIVER BASIN TO FLORIDA BAY
A brief look into the background of Lake Okeechobee and the few problems we have, that focus on it.
We do not mention Big Sugar as they have not been a factor, nor do they presently contribute to either the discharges to the coast or the Algae blooms.
“This is not” another emotional soliloquy by special interest decrying devastating damage to the Florida’s marine environment, thereby destroying our marine tourism with inaccurate and misleading information.
“This is” a rational, logical look at the few problems and their simple, cost effective solutions.
© 2018 Charles Tedder WORDS 7830
INTRODUCTION:
“The sky is falling”. “I promise to fix this problem”. “My opponent is in the pocket of big sugar”. “The Indian River surface is covered with a thick green slime, killing all the fish, porpoises, turtles and small children”. “The wading flats are covered with six feet of muck, we can’t catch a fish”.
Do any of these Statements sound familiar to you? Well if you have lived in South Florida for any of the last six to eight years, you have heard them ad nauseam every election cycle, budget cycle and every time Media circulation or donations begins to wane.
What is the reason for such negative Statements? Who is making these negative Statements? The answers are not hard to find. Just follow the money. Who stands to gain from making such spurious comments? Are the people making these comments interested in solving the problems they allude too? What is it all about?
Water. Dirty water. Nutrient-laden turbid water. Water filled with cyanobacteria, phosphorus, nitrogen, decaying organic sediment dissolved iron, copper and humus. Water flowing from the tenth largest Lake in the United States. Lake Okeechobee. 700 square miles of fresh water, which provides drinking water, irrigation water and a recreational paradise for locals and visitors to the area. The Lake is a haven for sportsmen and wildlife enthusiast alike. However, so are the lagoons and estuaries terminating the Caloosahatchee and Saint Lucie Rivers at the respective coast, where this nasty water is occasionally diverted.
The water flowing through the Caloosahatchee and Saint Lucie pass through navigational locks and dams. . The Lake level changes as the rivers to the north feed into it and rains fall upon it. The locks and dams on the rivers facilitate cross Florida water traffic and regulate the Lake levels within the confines of the Hoover D**e to serve those in the farm, sport fish and water sports industry as well as consumption as drinking water.
As you will see, the problems and solutions to them are not a problem. Circumnavigating the Special Interest in order to get them done is the “PROBLEM”.
For now, let us focus on the physical problems described below and the simple solutions to them instead of cause and effect, which gives rise to the roadblocks in getting them accomplished.
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS AND WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS?
1. Discharges to the East and West coast.
2. Nutrient-laden water entering the Lake from the North.
3. An outlet for water entering the Lake from the North.
4. The nutrient-laden water already in the Lake.
It is no more complicated than that. The fish kills, the algae blooms the nutrient-laden water, the lack of clean water to the Glades Grade, the lack of fresh water to Florida Bay. These are all effects of the few problems we face. So let us take them one at a time and put them to rest. Mind you, these solutions will not satisfy the Politicians, the media, the 501 c3’s or the carpetbaggers looking to profit off our great natural resource.
Nevertheless, once fixed they will stop the discharges, store water for later use, clean the water coming from the north, regulate Lake level and restore the flow to the Everglades Grade and to Florida Bay.
1. DISCHARGES TO THE EAST AND WEST COAST
The consequences are no longer simply damaging discharges to the opposing coast of large amounts of fresh water. Fresh water intrusion destroys seagrasses and dissolves the protective slime from the bodies of salt-water fishes leaving them with open lesions where bacteria attack them.
The discharges now carry the possibility of death to pets and smaller animals, as the worst-case scenario and/or sickness to humans from the cell wall degradation of cyanobacteria, releasing a microcytic toxin waste into the water.
Rarely if ever, has anyone died from contact with Microcytic toxin but people have become very ill and pets have died from excessive contact with it. Besides that, It Stinks. It emits a noxious odor not fit to breath by man or beast. It congregates in dead water canals and tide pools that have negligible water circulation. The life cycle of the cyanobacteria is brief. However, the bloom may last several weeks due to reintroduction of additional bacteria and nutrients to the body of water containing it.
We know the cause for the above. Can we fix it? Yes, close the dams at the locks and keep the water from draining through the Saint Lucie and Caloosahatchee Rivers, Estuaries and beyond. Done deal. Right? Well……. Not so fast.
Lake Okeechobee fills from rivers to the north that flow south. Not all the Lakes and rivers flow south all the time, but that has little to do with the discharges due to high water levels. Floodplains and watersheds at various spots around the Lake, along with some rivers and canals to the south and west, may flow into the Lake when it drops below twelve and a half feet. If it drops to ten feet, the Saint Lucie, which flows north due to gravity, reverses its direction and flows into the Lake. Therefore, whatever fix we apply must alleviate a low water condition.
The objective, in Lake Okeechobee is to keep the level between twelve and a half and fifteen and a half feet year round. With hurricanes, droughts and heavy rains, the Army Core of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District use an Ouija board in order to regulate these levels with any accuracy. Facetious? I know, but it would seem to be just as effective at times.
Anyway, for the instant purpose, I. E. our actions in this example. We have stopped the discharges by closing the dams at the locks. No more will we have to endure the ravages, to our pristine marine environment, caused by the discharges with the dams closed.
Nevertheless, the Rivers at the top of the Lake are continuing to flow into the Lake, laden with nutrients. With no outlet, it will continue to fill the Lake with runoff until it tops and breaches the Herbert Hoover D**e. This could potentially kill tens of thousands and destroy billions in homes, businesses and infrastructure, wiping out the eighth largest producer of produce in the United States.
Without a fix to this problem, we cannot permanently implement the simple fix of closing the dams, shutting off the filthy fresh water headed for the coast. The present emergency only schedule will keep them closed unless a catastrophic event, while we implement the fix to the second problem, the dirty water entering the Lake from the North.
2. NUTRIENT-LADEN WATER ENTERING THE LAKE FROM THE NORTH.
So what do we do? We have theoretically stopped discharging the contaminated water to the coast from the top of the Lake. That was instantaneous and cost nothing. However, how do we make the fix permanent?
We are still capturing the dirty fresh water in the Lake that we previously wasted through discharges. Capturing is a good thing but the Lake is filling and there is no reasonable outlet for this water to flow from the Lake with the dams closed.
There are two great fixes to this problem. Neither will be as costly as purchasing huge plats of land to dig yet another massive Lake to pump nasty nutrient laden water. Moreover, neither will place millions of acre-feet of polluted water south of a polluted Lake, one catastrophic weather event from a disastrous breach onto the Everglades grade.
Before we clean the water of nutrients, let’s figure out how to keep the water table in the Lake from overflowing and breaching the D**e. This is necessary in order to keep the dams closed. The alternative to discharges is far more disastrous than the discharges themselves. Remote storage of the water flowing from the North into the Lake is vital to stopping the discharges.
The main and most pertinent reason for any project concerning Lake Okeechobee should be an objective toward the restoration of the historic sheet flow originating at the headwaters of the Kissimmee River basin, through the Lake onto the Glades Grade and culminating in Florida Bay.
It is a simple process. Do not let the carpetbaggers tell you any different. Do not let the Media or the politicians tell you any different. They all have an agenda and it is not to fix the problem. It is to manage the slow indefinite implementation of a crisis management program with many uncertainties and multiple setbacks. Let us not allow this to become a crisis management issue, for profit, forever. The problem is simple and easy to fix.
Sequestering the runoff:
The SFWMD has already begun research into Deep Injection Wells and has actually established a preliminary budget to start the project. Albeit, for only fifty wellheads. The initial, including Permitting, Design, and Capital Costs of implementation: $330 million with annual Operations & Maintenance Cost: $10.2 million (at full implementation of fifty Wellheads).
However, by pad drilling (clustering several penetrations in a relatively close proximity) and clustering the individual wellhead controls in telemetry facilities (cloistering digital technological control infrastructure) in a central location. We can significantly reduce both the capital investment, operating and maintenance cost.
In the fourth quarter of 2012, just 20 percent of horizontal wells used pad drilling. By the first quarter of 2014, that percentage had increased to 70 percent. The savings were phenomenal and that was penetrating oil reservoirs where each foot was competing for a finite supply, not injection into substrates to deposit liquid for possible / probable reuse later.
Pad drilling will allow for three Injection only wells and one Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) well per pad. That would effectively keep the overall penetrations to fifty, dropping the charge only wells to forty adding an additional ten ASR wells to both charge the aquifer in rain events and recharge Lake Okeechobee when levels drop below preset minimums. With fifty pumps at 750 million gallons a day the storage of water can be accomplished albeit, over longer periods than the massive discharges. Raising or maintaining levels can be done at a less urgent pace with only ten ASR well points when recovering and recharging the Lake is needed.
One of the largest cost of drilling is the setup, breakdown and transportation to the next location. With Pad Drilling, you simply use skids to move the drilling structure a few feet instead of miles away thereby significantly reducing cost. These wellheads can keep up with significant rain events and once fifty percent implemented, will keep the discharges, if any necessary at all to a bare minimum until full implementation.
Will these wells be able to keep up with the water volume? You bet they can. In addition, the pumps are only used to inject water before, during and after heavy or catastrophic rain events.
SFWMD has indicated several locations along the Kissimmee and other sources flowing into the Lake, for placement of the wells. These locations will inject dirty water that would normally flow into the Lake thereby reducing the continuing accumulation of nutrients until the growers, farmers and ranchers can implement a best practices fertilization with a nutrient recovery and berm program on their property.
Another field of wells placed in the Lake on the North end could enhance the management of Lake level by encircling the field with a dam of Concrete Rubble, Red Mud and LECA, made with Red Mud to filter the phosphorous.
Sequestered where?
The water is injected well below any underground source of drinking water. (USDW) It is injected into an layer of salt water approximately 3000 feet deep. That layer is confined on top by an impermeable layer. Injecting just under the impermeable top confining layer produces a pocket of fresh water that displaces the salt water. Since the salt water is heavier than the fresh, it stays lower and the fresh water floats on top. Any mixing or migration of the water in the pocket would be imperceptible. If the Lake is threatened by severe drought, the filtered water that displaced the salt water in the boulder zone can be pumped back into the Lake to raise the level.
The neigh sayers spin their customary yarn about not being able to inject at the same rate as the discharges dumping billions of gallons a day into the Estuaries. We do not have to inject billions per day. The Lake is regulated at twelve and a half to fifteen and a half feet surface level on a year round schedule. These discharges Occur because management waits to ensure the volume against drought. When it is evident that the lower level won’t be compromised or the Lake is close to breaching its boundaries, they schedule a release to the estuaries. Deep well injection or recharging, can take place over weeks if not months, regulating the rise and fall as seasonal conditions require, negating the discharges to the estuaries.
The added benefit is the availability of the stored reserve in case of unseasonal or unpredicted drought. Except for the occasional recharging for drought or catastrophic event, the pumping will only be necessary in the initial phases of the project.
What about the condition of the water entering from the North? All along the Kissimmee Basin are farms, dairy and cattle ranches and orange groves that bleed Phosphorus and nitrogen every time it rains.
Working in conjunction with the Agriculture Extension program at UF, much the same as the farmers in the EAA did, we would implement a Best Practices fertilization plan. In conjunction with installing scrub berms using the LECA, Red Mud and Concrete Rubble at points adjacent to the highest volume runoff areas of their respective properties. This will kick-start the nutrient removal process before it enters the river.
The River is being returned to its original course after it was straightened to make additional land available for agriculture. At the intersection of the river where they dug the canal straightening the oxbows, they have filled the north end of the straightaway below the natural course, so the water will slow down and follow its original path, allowing the marsh vegetation to extract the nutrients.
If we go a step further, by loading the fill zone at the head of the straightaways with rechargeable LECA, (Light Expanded Clay Aggregate) manufactured with the bauxite byproduct of Red Mud and crushed Concrete Rubble, we have, in effect, created a Nutrient absorbing water-cleansing field adding to the marsh’s effectiveness. These are powerful attracters for the nutrients in the runoff and will be a strong addition to the nutrient scrubbing process. The water entering the Lake will be cleaner than it has ever been.
Creating an artificial reservoir in the north end of the Lake by using the same ruble and LECA to sequester pickup areas for the deep injection pumps will further filter the Lake water before injection. By the time it is injected into the bolder layer, it will be filtered bringing the parts per billion phosphorous down significantly. Any water later used to recharge, will be cleaner than the Lake. Dilution, in this case is the solution to pollution, bringing down the PPB significantly. This however will be limited and initially an infrequent use of this methodology unless results indicate a significant cleansing is an effect.
Nevertheless, we do not want to rely on just pumping the rainwater under ground and then reverse pumping to the surface during drought conditions. If we are to restore the last eleven per cent of southern flow to the Everglades Grade to approximate the historical sheet flow, we must somehow replicate the southern flow of water by moving it past the southern end of the Hoover D**e. There are those that recommend using a MOAB, mother of all bombs. I emphatically advise against it.
3. AN OUTLET FOR WATER ENTERING THE LAKE FROM THE NORTH.
We have drilled sixty Deep Injection Wells, storing, not wasting, millions of acre-feet of runoff that has historically gone to sea. $350,000,000. We have implemented a nutrient scrubbing program in conjunction with the University of Florida Agricultural Extension Program. $26,000,000 and a large part of that supplemented by the stakeholder farmer, rancher, grower.
The effort so far has proven relatively inexpensive and extremely workable to stop, store and restore the water with the added benefit of cleaning the water entering the Lake. However, that does not restore the sheet flow to the Florida Bay.
At the southern end of the Lake, are large pumps that are used for water transportation through the EAA to the various canals, Storm water Treatment Area’s (STA’s) and further to the Water Conservation Areas (WCA’s).
If we were to route the water, from the Lake, under the EAA, the farmers would likely contribute to burying the pipes carrying water to a manifold system some thirty miles from the Lake. On the other hand, we could dig canals through a relatively small strip of land over the EAA and the farmers would likely be receptive to the idea and provide land to the State, as it could work into the overall irrigation system of the EAA and provide yet another outlet for water dispersion. The third method and the one least expensive is to repurpose or Co-purpose the Miami Canal to carry the water to the manifold.
The grade level, where the manifold will be constructed, is historically ten feet three inches. No matter, the Manifold should be set at the highest average grade on a longitudinal line on the west boundary of those lands served by the manifold. By fixing both, the input field height in the Lake at fifteen feet and output manifold height at the discharge plain, at the highest average boundary height, we can create a drain grade similar to that of pre D**e history.
Start by dredging a reasonable area of the bottom on the south end of the Lake, in close proximity to a major pump station. Replace the sediment layer on the bottom with LECA, Red Mud and Concrete Rubble. An outer perimeter dam of the same material to filter the water as it flows into the pickup area. An intake pipeline farm with predetermined height between twelve and a half and fifteen and a half feet above sea level (NGVD), at the pickup area. The feeder pipelines would pe*****te through the southern end of the Hoover D**e dumping into formed earthen channels or dedicated reservoir filled with the same filtration material. Another outflow, pipeline farm, within that reservoir at the predetermined height of the eighteen-mile manifold could feed into dedicated thirty-mile feeder canal or as previously stated the re-purposed or co-purposed Miami canal.
The filtration canals or canal, flow into a eighteen mile earthen or concrete reinforced manifold across the head of the Grade beginning at the northeast corner of the Holey Wildlife Management Area proceeding due West, intersecting the East boundary of the Rotenberger Wildlife Management Area. By re purposing or co-purposing the Miami canal we eliminate the costly stretch of canal or piping to the Manifold.
Once completed, the flow from the North, Kissimmee River basin is an un-assisted, hydraulic system, not depending on pumps, switches or interference by man. This eliminates permissions from the EPA to release water onto the grade when it is need most because of an opportunistic, overpopulated, non-indigenous Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow. This will force it’s migration to original habitat along the Gulf Coast and afford the Everglades Grade the return of is River of Grass.
When the Grade has been replenished and adjustments made to the STA’s and WCA’s to allow the same hydraulic continuation of flow, then we will once again have 100% sheet flow on a large portion of the remaining Everglades Grade.
4. THE NUTRIENT-LADEN WATER ALREADY IN THE LAKE.
Regardless of what you hear regurgitated ad nauseam by the Special Interest groups mentioned herein, The Lake is not in immediate peril. The Estuaries are not in immediate peril. The Everglades is not in immediate peril. Florida Bay is not in immediate peril. The operative word in this case is our understanding of “immediate”.
For sure, the Lake has a high level of Phosphorous. For sure, massive Algae blooms have besieged it of late. That in itself is self-remediating. Why? Because as we implement the aforementioned fixes, the phosphorous levels are reduced through the process of removal of nutrient laden water before entering the lake by injecting into the boulder zone. Removal, by filtration of water in the Lake prior to injecting by filtration with a combination of Concrete Rubble, LECA and Red Mud barriers and filtration plains. Removal, by filtration as the water leaves the Lake and again prior to and during its journey to the manifold at the head of the Grade for dispersal onto the historic River of Grass.
As this process proceeds the PPB, phosphorus, will continue to reduce by volume until we return to normal levels. The blooms will continue, as they are part of natural process. They will however, diminish in size and scope in relation to dwindling phosphorus content and diminishing eutrophication layer, which were triggers, for the unnatural and enormous recent blooms. The closing of the dams however, has eliminated further exposure of the East and West Coast Estuaries to both lake populations of the Cyanobacteria and the high content of Phosphorous in the Lake.
A word about the Tamiami Trail.
The Tamiami Trail roadway and the Tamiami Canal, both have acted as a dam to block water flow from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, at the southern tip of the peninsula. As a result, the historic natural sheet flow had diminished greatly. With the combined efforts in the 1990s, between the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) and the Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), there where great strides in cleaning and redistributing of more than eighty-five percent of the historic flow. Filling a few canals and redirecting the water to newly constructed culverts under the Tamiami Trail, helped to regulate water flow, albeit confined mostly to the Eastern side of the “River of Grass”.
There has been a commitment to elevate the roadway and it has had a positive effect at allowing natural drainage into the Everglades and Everglades National Park. As we are looking to replenish the sheet flow to the Western Boundary, we would ask for additional infrastructure to accommodate that goal. A canal paralleling the trail at the instant grade on the South side of the Trail is imperative. At approximately fifty million a mile to raise the roadway, to allow the flow, an additional six miles, interspersed in one-mile increments to the Western boundary, would be more than sufficient for our purposes to restore complete historic flow to the Grade and on into Florida Bay.
A WORD ABOUT THE FILTRATION
The unnatural part of this process of cleaning the water of phosphorous is the filtration methodology of using a phosphorous binding media of Concrete Rubble, LECA and / or Red Mud. Concrete Rubble is available in great quantity in a concreate rubble plant in Fort Pierce Florida. The rubble is capable of absorbing 90% of phosphorous in water that passes through it.
Initially the untreated rubble has an undesirably high PH. This is due to the high accumulation of cement dust created during the crushing process. To reduce the PH we can add an acid or wash the rubble prior to installation with Sea Water to lower the initial PH to a mid-range of 7 to 8 where it attracts the Phosphorous best.
Phosphorus binds so well to the concrete because it contains cement. Cement is rich in calcium and contains aluminum and iron. All three can bind phosphorus. The useful life of the rubble can be several years of constant flow or filtration depending on methodology of system. Once the medium has reached its useful life, it can be excavated and used as roadbed material.
1. Sara Egemose, Melanie J. Sønderup, Malde V. Beinthin, Kasper Reitzel, Carl Christian Hoffmann, Mogens R. Flindt. Crushed Concrete as a Phosphate Binding Material: A Potential New Management Tool. Journal of Environment Quality, 2012; 41 (3): 647 DOI: 10.2134/jeq2011.0134
2. University of Southern Denmark. "Old concrete can protect lakes and streams from phosphorus-laden run-off." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130822105038.htm (accessed November 21, 2018).
LECA, (LIGHTWEIGHT EXPANDED CLAY AGGREGATE)
Lightweight expanded clay aggregate (LECA), is a light weight aggregate made by heating clay to around 1,200 °C (2,190 °F) in a rotary kiln. The yielding gases expand the clay by thousands of small bubbles forming during heating producing a honeycomb structure.
During the manufacturing process, the base clay substance used can be modified with other compatible and beneficial material. A material beneficial to the binding and further removal of phosphorous could be Cement, also found in Concrete Rubble or Red Mud, a byproduct of aluminum manufacturing. We can obtain the Cement cheaply and ready to use. Red Mud, on the other hand, would require an additional manufacturing process to achieve our desired result.
Red Mud, rendered from Bauxite when making Aluminum, is a slurry, hence the name Mud. It is a highly alkaline waste material with a pH of 10–13 because of the sodium hydroxide solution used in the refining process. Red Mud can be classified as hazardous waste material because of its caustic/saline/sodic nature. Therefore, before it’s used as an adsorbent for our purposes, it needs to be neutralized by acid or heat or both and configured as a solid. Neutralization results in a residue with a pH of 8.0–8.5.
With the addition of commercial peat the phosphorous removal increased by 17–21% to over 95% using Red Mud. This mixture is the optimum ingredient to blend in the LECA process and would achieve the optimum filtration results.
1. Roberge, G., Blais, J.F. and Mercier, G. 1999. Phosphorus removal from wastewater treated with red mud‐doped peat. Can. J. Chem. Eng., 77: 1185–1194.
2. Liu, C‐J., Li, Y‐Z., Luan, Z‐K., Chen, Z.Y., Zhang, Z‐G. and Jia, Z‐P. 2007. Adsorption removal of phosphate from aqueous solution by active red mud. J. Environ. Sci., 19: 1166–1170.
3. Huang, W., Wang, S., Zhu, Z., Li, L., Yao, X., Rudolph, V. and Haghseresht, F.2008. Phosphate removal from wastewater using red mud. J. Hazard. Mater., 158: 35–42.
4. Shiao, S.J. and Akashi, K. 1977. Phosphate removal from aqueous solution from activated red mud. J. Water Pollut. Control Fed., 49: 280–285.
WHEN IT ALL COMES TOGETHER
When all is finished, the water originating as runoff from the Kissimmee River Basin will flow into the lake clean. It will outflow to small scrubbing reservoirs just south of the d**e hydraulically and further flow down a thirty-mile feeder canal to an eighteen-mile manifold where it will flow onto the Glades Grade as clean fresh water.
Replacing filtration material should be infrequent if at all in the containment areas. As the water is cleaned through the adsorption method, and nutrient loading eliminated through a best management fertilization plan on Rivers to the North, replacing would be a matter of allocation of materials, not need. It would be more likely at the berms on the farms and ranches along the Kissimmee River, where the fertilization along with animal excretions would continue to add nutrients until the best management plan began to make a difference as it did in the EAA.
Lakes and streams are often receiving so much phosphorus that it could pose a threat to the local aquatic environment. Now, research shows that there is an easy and inexpensive way to prevent phosphorus from being discharged to aquatic environments. The solution is crushed concrete from demolition s...
