FLORIDA Murky lake may cloud economy

Hurricane Wilma took its toll on the second-largest lake in the contiguous United States.
By SUSAN COCKING
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
ON LAKE OKEECHOBEE, Fla. -- Mike Surman was disgusted. The Boca Raton bass pro and TV fishing show host lowered his glimmering spinnerbait an inch below the brown, murky surface of Lake Okeechobee, and the lure became invisible.
"This is the dirtiest, nastiest water you've ever seen," Surman said. "I've been fishing this lake 25 years, and I've never seen it this bad. Never."
Surman was on his first Big O fishing trip since Hurricane Wilma, on Nov. 27. Launching his boat at a battered ramp in Clewiston, Surman bypassed the entire south end of the lake and sped 30 minutes to the north shore before finding clear water and schooling bass.
In four hours, he caught and released 15 bass of about four pounds. But he worried that the murky waters -- exacerbated by this winter's brisk northerly winds -- might send organizers of high-dollar bass tournaments looking for a different venue next year.
"Without clear water, it's very hard to catch fish," he said. "In the middle of the winter with the cold fronts coming through, it's really going to be bad. I'm worried the tournament organizers won't come back here because it's so messed up."
Worst-ever shape?
Surman is not alone in believing the 730-square-mile lake -- second-largest in the contiguous United States -- might be in its worst-ever shape. Since a drought coupled with a manmade drawdown in 2000-01 allowed drowned aquatic vegetation to regrow, lake levels have risen steadily, undoing the benefits of the newly created habitat.
In summer 2004, Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne drove sloshing waves up to 9 feet high across the lake, uprooting water plants. Continued high water, including damage from Hurricane Wilma, destroyed the remaining vegetation, leaving bass, bluegill and crappie (speckled perch) with few places to hide, reproduce and feed.
The big lake not only lost 50,000 acres of submerged vegetation, but it was piled with more than 116,000 cubic yards of debris. With no bulrush or eelgrass to filter phosphorus-laden sediments that wash in from neighboring farms, algae blooms cropped up, and the waters grew dirtier.
Don Fox, a fisheries biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in Okeechobee, said crappie catches are at their lowest level since 1973 when the species was commercially harvested. Largemouth bass, he said, are doing better -- but not much.
"We've got two to three years before there's a noticeable decline in the bass fishery," he said.
Right now, bass are concentrated in a few areas where they still have suitable habitat, such as Moonshine Bay and the Monkee Box. Fox said the Monkee Box, a formerly grassy marsh, is so denuded that he got lost there the last time he went to sample fish.
"That's where everybody will be fishing," Fox said.
Frank Marsocci, owner of the Fast Break convenience store and tackle shop in Okeechobee, said he was pessimistic about the winter fishing prospects of his tourist customers.
"When the fishing is in bad shape, business isn't so good," Marsocci said. "It's a large part of our economy in Okeechobee County. We'll just have to see what happens."
Governor's plan
Just before Wilma's onslaught in late October, Gov. Jeb Bush announced a $200 million plan to clean up Lake Okeechobee and, at the same time, avoid fouling the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries that catch most of the lake's outflow east and west.
But Wilma might have put those measures on hold, including a planned drawdown beginning in spring 2006.
"We started to make a little progress, then Wilma comes and the lake went up almost two feet," South Florida Water Management District spokesman Randy Smith said.
Karl Havens, a former water district biologist who is a professor at the University of Florida, said a drastic lowering of lake levels is critical to the recovery of Lake Okeechobee.
In a research paper published last summer, Havens recommended drawing down the lake to 12 feet above mean sea level or lower for 12 weeks or longer in winter and spring for two years in a row. He said water managers should refill it as slowly as possible, holding it below 15 feet in fall and winter.
"The impounded, sediment-laden lake lacks the capacity to recover naturally from hurricanes, except under extreme drought conditions," Havens wrote."