Posted on June 5, 2018
By Tyler Treadway, TCPalm
The head of the Army Corps of Engineers has finished his review of the proposed reservoir to cut Lake Okeechobee discharges.
The Office of Management and Budget has to check the plan before we’ll officially know if the feds have given it a thumbs up or thumbs down.
But a letter to OMB Director Mick Mulvaney by four members of Florida’s congressional delegation indicates the Corps chief has given the plan a “favorable” analysis.
R.D. James, who leads the Corps as assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, has reviewed the plan and submitted “a review assessment, including a determination of whether the project is feasible” to OMB, Katherine “Katie” Krause, a spokeswoman for the Corps at the Pentagon, said Friday.
The OMB’s take on the project has to be in place “before we can give our opinion” on whether the project should be recommended to Congress, Krause said. “Since we all work for the same administration, we all want to be on the same page.”
A letter from U.S. Sen Marco Rubio and U.S. Reps. Brian Mast of Palm City, Carlos Curbelo of Kendall and Francis Rooney of Naples states: “It is our understanding that the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works has transmitted a favorable U.S. Army Corps of Engineers analysis” of the plan “to your office for review.”
The four Republicans’ letter states Rubio and the congressmen “strongly support” the project as designed by the South Florida Water Management District and requests Mulvaney’s “assistance to ensure a timely review” by OMB.
The Florida legislation authorizing the project calls for the federal government to pay half the cost of the estimated $1.4 billion project.
If approved by OMB, the plan will be sent back to the Corps, which will then submit it to Congress for authorization.
The South Florida Water Management District sent its design for the project to the Corps in late March. The timetable assumed by the state has the Corps approving and sending the plan to Congress by Oct. 1.
Sooner would be better: Committees in both houses of Congress already are considering this year’s Water Resources and Development Act, the list of authorized water projects the reservoir needs to be part of to proceed. Congress probably won’t approve another WRDA for at least two years.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have already put “placeholders” for the reservoir in the versions of WRDA they’re considering, meaning the project will be included in the final bill once it’s submitted by the Corps.
The Corps’ approval comes just as the agency began discharging Lake Okeechobee water Friday morning into the St. Lucie River — exactly what the reservoir is designed to curtail.
The district claims the project’s 10,100-acre reservoir and 6,500-acre man-made marsh will be able to reduce discharges to both rivers by 63 percent and send about 120.6 billion gallons of clean water south to the Everglades each year.
Source: TCPalm
