C-44 Reservoir Being Filled with Lake O Water

C-44 Reservoir, Martin County, FL, 1-19-22, aerial by Ed Lippisch. (Plane: Piper Lance belonging to Dr. Shaun Engebretsen.)Last Wednesday, on January 19, 2022, I received a text from my husband, Ed. The text was brief: “C-44 with water.”

I looked at the message and the photographs and being swamped with reading, I ignored both.

On Saturday, January 22, my brother, Todd,  texted me: “They have been bringing lake water into the C-44 basin most of the week via S-308 at Port Mayaca. Now it’s closed and S-80 is open at 811 cfs? This is called “local basin runoff,” to the St Lucie, hopefully just a little blip.” This time, I put down my reading. I called my contacts at the SFWMD and the ACOE to find out what was going on. The ACOE was filling up the C-44 Reservoir via a “high”Lake Okeechobee through S-308 and the C-44 Canal.  After a few days, a rainstorm hit, so the ACOE opened the S-80 gates at St Lucie Locks and Dam to get the C-44 Canal level down. Hmmm?

The photos taken from the Piper Lance show the C-44 Reservoir as it was filled on January 19th, 2022. It must be much higher now, six days later.

The filling -for the first time- of the C-44 Reservoir is historic. The C-44 Reservoir is the first major CERP project that was completed by the ACOE and their partners – right here in Martin County.

Part of Indian River Lagoon South, this massive project, and in the future, the EAA Reservoir, give real hope for a better water future: more water flowing south to the Everglades and fewer damaging discharges from Lake Okeechobee to the St Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon.

Check out these photographs!

~FULL, 1-19-22.

Below, I have included three photos from November 26, 2021 that Ed took when he still had the Beechcraft Baron. These photos were taken when the C-44 Reservoir was just a” little bit full” in November after the ACOE’s Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on November 19, 2021.

~NOT SO FULL, 11-26-21.

THE PHOTOS BELOW ARE SHARED TO COMPARE THE “FULLER” PHOTOS ABOVE FROM JANUARY 19, 2022,  TO THE “NOT SO FULL” PHOTOS OF NOVEMBER 26, 2021. Ed Lippisch.