Compliance With Water Quality Criteria in a Multiple-Use Lake, Lake Okeechobee, Florida

ABSTRACT Lake Okeechobee, Florida, is managed for multiple uses, including drinking water supply, recreation, wildlife habitat, and flood control. Because much of the drainage basin is in agricultural production, maintenance of water quality conditions is a major management consideration for the lake. An evaluation of water quality data collected over a 20-year period indicated that Lake Okeechobee and its major inflows generally comply with applicable numerical criteria, and that parameters that exceeded criteria at inflows have not impaired die designated uses of the lake. Of 59,781 water quality measurements, 6,409 (10.7 percent) exceeded the applicable criteria. For most monitored parameters, values that exceeded criteria generally represented less than 25 percent of die measurements at specific locations. Exceptions included dissolved oxygen (DO) andiron. Low DO values (>5.0 mg·L−1) represented 9 to 100 percent of measurements at inflow stations, although fewer than one percent of the observations at...