The recent rains — well before the usual rainy season — have had a marked and positive impact on the levelof our Chain of Lakes. According to Roger Griffiths of the Lake Region Lakes Management District (often called the Canal Commission) the level of the Chain is 129.70 (feet above sea level) and on March 19
that level was 129.24. This means that in the past 10 days the lakes have come up .46 or almost 6 inches. This compares to last year on March 27, 2009 when the lakes were at 129.08 or .62 lower than the current level. This means we are about 7.5 inches higher than this time last year. While it does not yet represent ideal levels, we are certainly moving in the right direction. Minimum desired level is 129.5 and maximum is 131.5.
As an update on the lock (Lake Hartridge to Conine), the firm hired to complete phase two – installation of the doors – is again moving forward. They have hired a Lakeland engineering firm to prepare the needed documents to acquire a permit from the City of Winter Haven. That has been a needed next step and is now underway. These documents should be available in another 2 to 3 weeks. They will then apply for a permit and finish the job.
How can 129.5 be minimum desired level, when you can’t navigate safely through 90% of the canals at that level? That level may have been ok when the canals were deeper in years past, but after years of storms and the lack of dredging, the minimum desired level is inaccurate in my opinion. We need our canals dredged now while the water is low, and while its the slow season. Lets not wait until Summer when everybody wants to go boating to shut down the canals for maintenance. Lets do it NOW.
Our Chain of Lakes is a HUGE asset to the Winter Haven area and needs to be taken care of as so. There are plenty of businesses (including mine) that depend on boaters being able to use our lakes instead of traveling to lakes elsewhere or just not using their boat all together.
The Winterset canal is horrible although the new bridge nicknamed the “Baby Skyway” is nice. I wonder what the price tag was on that?
Billy Rerucha
Cypress Water Sports
I’m with Billy – I have trouble navigating my ski boat through the canals at the ‘minimum desired level’. At the height of last summer I was able to navigate from Lake Eloise to Summit and up to Shipp – no further.
Since the levels are based on ‘Above Sea Level’ – we need to lower the bottoms of the canals.
Rob Williams
We live on Lake Hamilton which by nature is a shallow lake. We have 3 feet of water at the end of a 250′ dock which is just enough to launch our boat off the lift. Neighbors are not as fortunate so I am certainly not complaining, however, when all the water was drained off after the hurricanes a few years back, the lake didn’t recover and we had to put the boat on the trailer. Don’t quote me on it but I had heard that Roger opposed lowering the lakes back then but was overruled. Roger does a great job doing his job. Management needs to let him do it.
when are the canals going to be dredged? with a ski boat they are way too low. and why are the lakes being kept low a lot of lakes not on the chain are much higher!!
the canals have been too low or too stringently patroled, espespescially the lakes. we used to have a once a year lake clean-up which wouldmt be possibly if not for the charitible time of others.but it wouldnt be necessary if people wouldnt toss theit trass in the lakes in the first place” Thanks Scott , Bill and Jill. ive been gone for some time now and am hoping i made the right decision coming home.Without water Winter will simply die agagi, for those whom remember Cypress Gardens or worked there as a teen.Good Luck Billy
i can remember when the canals were too low to go through without getting a no wake ticket. and without Scott Snively having to spend the time cleaning up others garbage that they insisted on tossing in the the lakes, forgive me if i forgot any others. Any whom remember working at cypress Gardens as a teen, without water Winter Haven will Again die. Like the contaminated water thar contributed to the death of so many acres of groves. Good Luck Billy, Paul
After reviewing some of the discussions in this blog, I thought it best to clarify some information. The SWFWMD adopted a series of levels for most of the lakes in this area. These levels are titled as follows: Ten-year flood level, Minimum flood level, Maximum desirable, Minimum level (low), and Minimum low (Extreme low). There is no official level known as “minimum desired level”. The low water level in the lakes and canals is being caused by a four- year drought. This drought has not only been slightly under normal rainfall, but substantially below normal rainfall. This lack of rainfall has resulted in lower water levels in the canals.
Years ago, when the seawall sheets were installed in the canals, most of them were only 8-feet long. This short length limits the amount of dredging that can be done in the canals. If too much soil is removed from around the bottom of the sheets, they will kick out and the wall will fail. Currently, the newer seawalls are built using longer sheets. In most cases, these are 13-foot long sheets and this allows for some deepening of the canals. Another limiting factor today is the construction of the existing bridges. New bridges, such as the one over the Eloise to Winterset canal, are being built with deeper supports that allow the canals to be excavated deeper in those areas. After engineering inspections, the City of Winter Haven has allowed the Lakes Management District to deepen the area under the bridge in the canal between Lake Howard and Lake Cannon. New seawall material is being installed under this bridge and in the Lake Howard end of this canal. This portion of the canal will then be deepened. The City is working with an engineering firm to improve the bridge over the Lake May to Lake Howard canal. If improvements are made to this bridge, the District will deepen this canal.
The City of Winter Haven is in the planning stages of replacing the bridge between Lake Cannon and Lake Mirror. The District is working with the City on this project and will replace the seawall in this canal and deepen it during this bridge improvement project.
The District continues to make improvements in the canal system every year. This year the District will be installing about 2000 feet of seawall and doing excavations where possible. If anyone has questions on a specific canal, please call the Lakes Management District at 293-1441 or email us at info@lakesmgmtdist.com.
If the older canals have seawall sheets of 8-feet long and dredging would remove too much soil causing the sheets to kick out, couldn’t longer sheets be then inserted at some point in front of the existing sheets to extend the full 13 feet? This may cause a loss in width of the canal, but would then make them passable, which is a huge concern for our residents. Is this a possibility and/or has a solution like this been explored? Is there a better solution that can be done without completely removing the shorter seawalls within the canal?
If I am reading Mr. Griffiths’ post correctly the areas near the bridges have the capability of being dredged further, but the reality is that the area of the bridges in most canals is less than 1/4 of the canal length, so even though it could be dredged under the bridges you simply can’t dredge the entire canal, leaving us all “beached” at the entrance and exit of the canals.
It seems that with our declining property values it would be important to keep the one major factor that keeps people coming to Winter Haven in working order. I strongly feel that we must invest in retro fitting the canal walls with the 13′ sheeting through out the canals, perhaps something like this that would restore the use of our canals might take presidence over adding new lakes to our already low Chain of Lakes.
The marine lifestyle is a part of our Floridian culture, it’s part of our tourism and with out planning and changing to insure that in our future we do not run into this problem again seems like a recipe for yet another failure and dissatisfaction of lake users. Let’s insure our heritage in Winter Haven and find a way to fund a canal restructuring project.
I am new to the Chain and have been doing research in trying to find out information regarding the route 12 bridge at Nippersink. Does anyone know of a web site that offers water levels as we are trying to get our New Boat home. We can’t clear the second Bridge and we were told the water level is too high. New to the Chain and appreciate any information. Thanks!