U.S. Sugar files lawsuit against Army Corps over Lake Okeechobee management, low water levels

A Florida farming powerhouse is taking the federal government to court over the management of Lake Okeechobee. 

U.S. Sugar filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saying the Army Corps is violating its own regulations and the National Environmental Policy Act. 

“Since November of 2018, the Corps has released unprecedented volumes of water from Lake Okeechobee, and as a result they’ve recently driven the lake into the water shortage band (which requires the South Florida Water Management District to implement water shortage policies) during the rainy season,” said U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez in a press release. 

The Army Corps manages Lake Okeechobee levels and has in recent years kept the surface of the lake between 12.5 and 15.5 feet above sea level to protect the lives, businesses and properties around the lake and to provide water for farming, drinking water and nature. Efforts to reach the Corps for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

U.S. Sugar, in its press release, suggests it's aligned with environmental interests that filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps earlier this year. 

Those environmental groups, though, were asking the Army Corps to deviate from what's called the Lake Okeechobee Regulations Schedule, or LORS, which sets the 12.5- to 15.5-foot requirement.

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U.S. Sugar, on the other hand, filed its lawsuit because the Army Corps did deviate from LORS. 

“At low lake levels (13 feet and below), the LORS 2008 schedule instructs the Corps to hold water,” Sanchez said in the release. “By releasing water without preparing a new or updated Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and analyzing the full impacts of that release of water on the lake, the people, and the downstream systems that rely upon its water, the Corps of Engineers has broken its own regulations and violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act.”

The environmental groups in the first lawsuit include the Center for Biological Diversity, Calusa Waterkeeper and the Waterkeeper Alliance. 

Jacklyn Lopez, with the Center for Biological Diversity, said growers like U.S. Sugar have kept the Army Corps in the past from operating the lake in a way that would benefit the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers and cut down on potential algal blooms. 

The rivers were artificially connected to the lake to drain the Everglades for farming and development. 

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"I’m assuming they’re referring to our (lawsuit) and they say they’re aligned with us and our concerns, but I doubt that is the case," Lopez said. "Operations in the EAA (Everglades Agriculture Area south of the lake) have interfered with the Army Corps’ ability to move water south and to keep it from being sent to the estuaries."

U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-Palm City) has pushed the Army Corps to stop harmful discharges to the two rivers, saying the agency should manage the lake not only for water supply to farming operations but also for natural waterways and public health.  

"The Corps must make decisions based on balancing a number of priorities — including water quality," Mast Tweeted earlier this week, before U.S Sugar filed the lawsuit. 

Lake levels may not remain low too much longer. 

The surface of the lake was 11.7 feet above sea level Thursday, and the South Florida Water Management District announced that it's preparing the flood system for a tropical system that could impact Florida over the weekend. 

Connect with this reporter: @ChadGillisNP on Twitter. 

Save the date:Save Our Water summit is coming Aug. 21 to Bonita Springs