CERP - Lake Okeechobee Watershed Restoration Project (LOWRP)

The purpose of the Lake Okeechobee Watershed Restoration Project (LOWRP) is to increase water storage capacity in the watershed, resulting in improved Lake Okeechobee water levels, improved quantity, timing, and distribution of water to the Northern Estuaries, improved water supply for existing legal Lake Okeechobee Service Area users, and to restore wetlands within the project area. The Recommended Plan would achieve these goals and objectives by reducing high-volume freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee by redirecting these flows to an above-ground wetland attenuation feature (WAF) and aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) wells. Additionally, the Recommended Plan restores approximately 4,800 acres of wetlands along the historic Kissimmee River channel and provides for recreational facilities at multiple sites in the WAF and wetland restoration sites. The Recommended Plan includes a flow-through WAF, 80 ASR wells, and the Paradise Run and Kissimmee River Center wetland restoration sites. By creating additional water storage north of Lake Okeechobee, the Recommended Plan can facilitate improved flexibility in the timing and distribution of water in the lake, to the northern estuaries, and throughout the Lake Okeechobee watershed. Water can be stored during wet times to reduce damaging high lake stages and later be released into the Lake to reduce the impacts of low stages during dry times. The storage proposed by the Recommended Plan increases the amount of time that the Lake stage levels are within the ecologically preferred stage envelope (31.2% as compared to 27.7% for the FWO condition) when modeled over the 41-year period of record (1965-2005). The Recommended Plan provides a 30% reduction in total flows from Lake Okeechobee to the Northern Estuaries. The first cost (2020 price level) of the Recommended Plan is $1,963,959,000.