Lake Okeechobee needs better management as lake levels are now too high | Letters

Lake O high levels devastating

Thanks to Chad Gillis for his conversation with Dr. Pail Gray regarding the current destruction of the Heart of the Everglades because of too-high water. The US Army Corps of Engineer’s management of Lake levels guided by the proposed new schedule, The Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual (LOSOM), has resulted in the death of the submerged aquatic vegetation needed to clean the polluted water flowing in from the northern basins. Sooner or later a storm will come and the too-high lake will have to be drained, destroying the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries with the most polluted water ever. LOSOM is a disaster for the lake and will prove a disaster for the estuaries with any rain event that occurs.

Newton E. Cook is president of the United Waterfowlers of Florida. He lives in Tequesta.

More: West Palm Beach hopes to tap Floridan Aquifer for water source as population grows

Beware "protecting freedom" rhetoric

Nationwide actions suppressing citizens' liberties by lawmakers under guise of "protecting freedom" are rampant and have only increased since 9-11. This freedom to oppress is not liberty for all as claimed. Reading and hearing my friends and neighbors pointedly citing article and section of the Constitution, eerily like Bible passages, immediately followed with vague references to violence is disturbing. While protests, often violent, happened throughout our country’s founding, those were about oppression and suppression of workers and merchants against super-rich elites. Now, those on the right are supporting the elite group’s corrupt actions. Moral warriors asserting dominance through threat or harm is immoral. Today’s problems distract from reality, and ‘loyalty tests’ ignore the spirit of compromise that founded and framed our great nation. If you’re unhappy with governing, vote incumbents out or run yourself. Threats are un-American.

John Cavallo, Delray Beach

A tale of two presidents

Is it possible that President Biden is trying to steer this ship back to the way the Framers intended our government to work? We have this problem so the party's come up with proposed solutions. A compromise is then reached within the bounds of the Constitution benefiting the greater good. We evidently have two presidents: One, the actual elected one, who is trying to get the Senate and the House to do their constitutional duty, and then we have Trump, the "Big-Lie" president. Trump's cult members claim Biden has the power to solve the border issue immediately, This is what dictators do, especially when they can use the power of fear and hate rather than morality and compassion as the guideposts.

David Clendining, Loxahatchee

Garfield's no cat's meow here

What happened to Get Fuzzy? It was my dessert after my daily meal of bad news. The comic strip by Darby Conley features the boundless imagination of Bucky the cat, his “punching bag “ Satchel, a dog, and the exasperated owner Robert. Am I to be satisfied with the mind-numbing redundancy of Garfield?

Linda Jordan, North Palm Beach

The Palm Beach Post is committed to publishing a diversity of opinions. Please send your views to letters@pbpost.com or by mail to Letters to the Editor, The Palm Beach Post, 2751 S, Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach 33405. Letters are subject to editing, must not exceed 200 words and include your name, address and daytime phone number. We only published names and cities with the letters.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Lake Okeechobee levels too high to ignore. Start draining now.