Specifications

Section 5 Formulation of Alternative Plans
EAA Storage Reservoirs Revised Draft PIR and EIS February 2006
5-8
(Compartment D). The former includes a series of 200 aquifer storage and
recovery wells adjacent to Lake Okeechobee with a capacity of 5 million gallons
per day each (1 billion gallons per day in total) and associated pre and post
water quality treatment facilities to treat the water to drinking water standards
prior to injection into the Upper Floridan Aquifer and after recovery from the
aquifer. The latter includes a series of 44 ASR wells in the C-43 basin with a
capacity of 5 million gallons each per day (220 million gallons per day in total)
and associated pre and post water quality treatment facilities.
In terms of acre-feet of storage, each well in the ASR system would have the
capacity to inject 5,601 acre-feet of water into the Upper Floridan Aquifer (for
later retrieval) on an annual basis, provided enough water was available within
the natural system (from rainfall, runoff, etc.) to do so. (To actually calculate
expected storage within the ASR system would require running simulations
using the 31-year period of record to determine when, historically, there was
sufficient or excess water available to be injected into the Aquifer.) The
combined capacities of the Lake Okeechobee and the C-43 basin ASR projects
would thus be 1,366,625 acre-feet per year. The ASR pilot project and regional
study are currently underway to address some of the technical and regulatory
uncertainties associated with implementing ASR systems on a large scale, such
as options for surface water withdrawal, injection and pumping cycles, water
quality, the effects of pumping cycles on groundwater and ecosystems, and
appropriate siting of ASR wells. While test results will not be available until
2010, presumably the ASR systems could be expanded in terms of number of
wells or well pumping capacity for injection and retrieval of water to include the
additional storage that the EAA Storage Reservoirs project requires.
Additional water stored in underground ASR systems, either surrounding Lake
Okeechobee or within the EAA region, could meet the following EAA planning
objectives:
1. Improve the timing of environmental deliveries of water to the WCAs.
More water could be stored in ASRs surrounding the lake and moved to
the lake and then southward through the EAA to the WCAs to meet the
needs of the natural system.
2. Reduce Lake Okeechobee regulatory releases of water to the WCAs. The
ASRs surrounding the lake and those in the Caloosahatchee basin could
withdraw water from the lake. This could reduce the need to make lake
regulatory releases southward to the WCAs when the WCAs already have
too much water.
3. Reduce regulatory releases of water from Lake Okeechobee to the St.
Lucie and Caloosahatchee Estuaries. The ASRs surrounding the lake and
those in the Caloosahatchee Basin could withdraw water from the lake.
This could reduce the need to make lake regulatory releases to the east