Audubon’s ideas are misleading from a water management perspective. The society’s first suggestion is wrong because farmers don’t use water from the lake when it is raining, as it has been lately. Excess water is being pumped into the lake to be stored, so it will be available next winter and spring when there is not enough rain.

Audubon’s second idea is to pay farmers to store public water on their land. This would require a lot of money to rent land and build temporary levees, storage facilities and pumps that would be used only in extreme drought conditions. The water stored in these impoundments would evaporate before it could be used. Audubon also implied that back-pumping costs are high. But the South Water Management District must pump the water either to the lake or south to the Everglades. In either case, the cost is identical.

Audubon’s next suggestion, that water be pumped south to the water conservation areas for storage, is ludicrous and won’t work. The conservation areas are large and shallow, and water will evaporate in the dry season. History shows that they won’t store water until spring, when coastal cities need it. The lake efficiency stores this water.

In applauding the Department of Environmental Protection’s decision to stop back-pumping water into Lake Okeechobee from the S-2 canal, The Post claims it would keep out the "worst" water. Actual data from the district shows that the water coming from the farming area at pump stations S-2 and S-3 is the cleanest water available to the drought-stricken lake.