The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winner is the South Florida Water Management District and George Horne its Director of Operations. They get the award for the following.

Water managers, scrambling for months to store up for the fast-approaching dry season, have dumped billions of gallons out to sea from Miami-Dade and Broward canals in the last two days.

They say they had no other choice with Tropical Storm Noel approaching, bringing the threat of not just heavy rains but a tidal surge that can effectively plug major coastal drainage canals.

''The paradox is that in the middle of a drought, we could end up with some flooding,'' said George Horne, director of operations for the South Florida Water Management District, which oversees the water supply and flood control in 16 counties.

Although most of Miami-Dade and Broward counties had plentiful rainy seasons, much of the rest of region didn't do as well. The district has been warning for months that water-use restrictions imposed last year will likely get much tougher -- possibly before year's end.

Lake Okeechobee, which acts as South Florida's water barrel, is the major hole in the supply system. It still hasn't bounced back up from the effects of an 18-month drought and decisions last year by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and district to lower the lake's water level after bad back-to-back hurricane seasons filled it high enough to threaten its aging dike.

But the projected hurricanes didn't come last year or this one, sending the lake to an all-time low in July. On Wednesday, near the end of the traditional rainy season, it sat at 10.33 feet above sea level, about five feet below normal.

We're in a drought, the lake is five feet below normal, the dry season is almost upon us and we're dumping water. Have these people gone insane? Welcome to South Florida, you have to be a masochist down here. For blundering away Florida's water supply, South Florida Water Management District and George Horne its Director of Operations are today's Knuckleheads of the Day.

Hat tip- Rick at SOTP
Linked to- Big Dog, Bright & Early, Leaning Straight Up, Pursuing Holiness, Right Voices, Right Wing Nation, Samantha Burns, Third World County, The World According to Carl, Yankee Sailor,