U.S. Rep. Connie Mack is making an important contribution to the fight to save the Caloosahatchee River and its embattled estuary.

The current anxiety is drought, but the wet will return. Vast releases of pollution-laden water from Lake Okeechobee remain a threat to our coastal environment and nature-based economy unless we rework water management in South Florida.

Mack has introduced a bill, HR 1816, co-sponsored by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Hialeah; Vern Buchanan, R-Sarasota; and Tim Mahoney, D-Palm Beach Gardens, dealing with a key element in the fight to STOP THE MUCK, to use The News-Press slogan.

Heavy rains in 2004 and 2005 forced massive releases of fresh water from Lake Okeechobee into the Caloosahatchee and its estuary. Agricultural and other pollutants in the water triggered algae blooms that tainted the river and smothered sea grasses and killed fish in the estuary, where fresh and salt water mix to create a rich marine ecosystem.

The $388 million C-43 Basin Storage Reservoir under construction in Hendry County upstream from Fort Myers is designed to store up to 55 billion gallons of water during very wet seasons, reducing the heavy surges of water pushing down the river. But critics have complained that, without any means of cleansing nutrients from the water before it is released into the river, the reservoir would be much less useful.

Mack's legislation mandates the inclusion of vegetation to filter nutrients from reservoir water, a proven technique for removing pollutants.

This fight has many other dimensions, including revised lake releases, flowways for lake water south to Everglades National Park and treatment of water before it gets to the lake. Some of this is under way, and it will take years of effort and billions of dollars.

Mack is to be commended for this legislation, which deserves our strong support.