MOORE HAVEN, Fla. — John Cassani flew in a small airplane over Moore Haven on Saturday and noticed the Moore Haven lock was open.
“The lock was wide open. Which means the water can leave the lake and come into the river directly through the lock chamber,” Cassani said.
The Franklin, Ortona, and Moore Haven locks are supposed to remain closed unless a boat needs to pass through. But in his photo, there’s no boat around, and it’s still open.
“I thought the lock there was supposed to operate like the lock here,” Cassani said.
The Army Corps of Engineers says that they were not discharging water out of the spillway right now, they’re most recent public reports show zero discharges in the past week.
UPDATE: Corps to release water at Moore Haven Lock as part of algae study
A graph obtained by Fox 4 shows that the Army Corps of Engineers has been discharging when the blue line is above zero, that means discharge is going through. On July 13th, the graph shows the lock discharged up to 1500 CFS (cubic feet per second).
The Army Corps claim they are not releasing discharges and the gate is solely for boats driving through, stating it “hardly lets in any water at all.”
