LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. — Keeping the Caloosahatchee’s water clean is crucial for our ecosystem, and a new reservoir and filter marsh in Lehigh is set to make a splash.
As Fox 4’s Hendry County Community Correspondent, I’ve done a number of stories about the health of the river, so when I heard about this project I had to dive in to see how it will naturally cleanse it’s water. Watch my report here...
Excavators were busy digging out the storage reservoir, the final phase of this 100-acre project. Behind them. the filter marsh is a stretch of water that winds through the property - it will do the heavy lifting for water cleaning.
David Lindsay, manager of the Lehigh Acres Municipal Services Improvement District, walked me through how it works.
“We’ve got a structure that lets water in so that’s it’s able to come in here into the deep water, which lets some solids fall out, and then it proceeds to snake through. The shallow areas are planted with a lot of cypress trees that are really good at pulling nutrients out of the system. It’s stuck in there for a while before it gets discharged. Then, at the far end of the project, there’s another water control structure and we’re able to discharge back into the Hendry Canal,” Lindsay explained.
Lindsay said this project is a key part of the Everglades restoration. With Florida’s development, he said projects like this help restore the natural water cleaning process before it reaches the Everglades.
“Now that we’ve channelized the water, that’s kind of eliminated a lot of that treatment and storage. So, we’re trying to simulate as best as we can to make it operate about the same as it used to,” said Lindsay.
By pulling nutrients out of the water, Lindsay said it helps keep the estuaries healthy, reduce blue-green algae blooms, and lower red-tide risk. Plus, the reservoir section of the project is for stormwater storage and treatment - Lindsay explained it will provide flood control for Lehigh.
“We did connect a canal - from one canal to the next - so in large rainstorms we can help pull a lot of that water out to help the people downstream on Bedman Creek,” said Lindsay.
When complete, the project will double as a park for fishing, hiking, and birdwatching. Lindsay expects the reservoir will be done in six months, with the full project operational by next summer.
