should be considered as possible contingencies to ASR—the primary source of new water storage for the CERP, but for which there are concerns about financial and technical feasibility—including synergistic opportunities related to modifications of the Herbert Hoover Dike. This committee makes no specific recommendations as to the most appropriate storage options, but it encourages CERP planners to consider a wide array of alternatives and their costs and benefits.

Short-term and long-term trade-offs will be needed in the rehabilitation of Lake Okeechobee and northern estuaries. Moving appropriate volumes of water south into the Everglades and managing flows into the northern estuaries may pose conflicts with sustaining adequate water levels for the lake biota and other in-lake goals, and until the Herbert Hoover Dike is rehabilitated, the risk of its failure at high lake levels will constrain options. Given the current altered state of the whole system, goals for the lake, the northern estuaries, and other downstream interests might not be mutually compatible in all respects. As a result, trade-offs will have to be made. Modeling and adequate, reliable data will be needed to evaluate many of these trade-offs as discussed in NRC (2005) and Loucks (2006).