Application of Water Quality Models to Everglades Restoration

The C-44 Reservoir/Stormwater Treatment (STA) Project will be located on approximately 12,000 acres of land located in southern Martin County, directly north of the C-44 Canal, halfway between Lake Okeechobee and the Atlantic Ocean. The Project will include an above-ground reservoir, pump station, canals, stormwater treatment area cells, and associated structures to capture and treat water from the C-44 Basin and water to be potentially diverted from the C-23 Basin in the future to achieve flow attenuation and water quality goals. A number of analytical tools have been utilized in the assessment of the Reservoir/STA system to assess these goals, such as phosphorus load reduction. The primary tool utilized for this assessment is the Dynamic Model for Stormwater Treatment Areas (DMSTA), which the South Florida Water Management District has used to successfully assess STA performance. In addition, CE-QUAL-W2 was applied in order to evaluate several in-reservoir water quality parameters, such as nutrients, dissolved oxygen (DO), and blue-green algae (cyanobacteria).