Water advocates worried Caloosahatchee reservoir costs may be going up
The Caloosahatchee River is the largest river in Southwest Florida and stretches from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico. Fort Myers News-Press
Advocates for a local Everglades project aimed at helping the ailing Caloosahatchee River are hoping costs don't rocket due to a plump economy and rising material costs.
The Caloosahatchee River reservoir, also called C-43, is designed to capture and store about 170,000 acre-feet of water — or about 55 billion gallons — that would otherwise be lost to the Gulf of Mexico.
Estimated costs for the reservoir were $600 million as recently as September, according to the South Florida Water Management District, but some fear those costs may rise soon.
District spokesman Randy Smith said the district will need to submit contracts before a final number can be released but that the project costs would not approach $1 billion, as has been rumored in the water quality community.
"The economy is much better, which means that things are going to cost a little more," Smith said. But "we have not received the (final) bids."
The reservoir is a 50-50 cost share project between the district and the Army Corps of Engineers.
It's expected to be complete and operational in 2022.
Corps of Engineers spokesman John Campbell said he hadn't heard of rising costs related to the reservoir yet, either.
In this June 2017 video, the construction of massive C-43 reservoir is underway. Andrew West, News-Press
Local water quality advocates say they understand the increases in the cost of materials but that the project should not end up costing $1 billion.
"This should have been figured out years and years ago," said Calusa Waterkeeper John Cassani. "I understand that things change. The economy changes, and costs change, but when you’re nearly doubling the cost of the project, that’s pretty wild. I don’t know how you justify it."
Water will be collected during the rainy season, stored in the reservoir and released during the dry season, when the estuary needs water from Lake Okeechobee to stay brackish.
Estuaries like the Caloosahatchee depend on a mixture of fresh and saltwater and are the base of the marine food chain.
This reservoir is a key to keeping the Caloosahatchee estuary healthy because it will be the dry season water supply for the river.
Sanibel Mayor Kevin Ruane said he had heard rumors of costs being as high as $1 billion but that he couldn't talk more about the situation because of pending litigation between Sanibel and other cities in Lee County and the water management district.
The Caloosahatchee estuary was forever changed when developers connected the river to Lake Okeechobee decades ago to drain the Everglades for farming and development.
Water that once sat on the landscape for months at a time — percolating into the subsurface drinking water aquifers — now moves through a network of ditches and canals as quickly as gravity will allow.
That means there's less water available during the dry season, which throws off the balance of the estuary.
State lawmakers set aside about $146 million for the reservoir for the 2018-19 water district year.
The reservoir site is in Hendry County off Highway 80 on more than 10,000 acres of former farm land.
A 2015 University of Florida study says about 400,000 acre-feet of storage is needed in the Caloosahatchee River watershed to improve water quality here.
Cassani said he hopes rising costs don't delay the project.
"If this delays it another five years, will we be accessing higher costs in another five years," Cassani asked. "Where does it end?"
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