KISSIMMEE, Fla. — The Kissimmee River is just about closed to boaters, because crews are fixing the locks up and down the river between Osceola County and Lake Okeechobee. The locks will be closed to navigation for the rest of the year.
After eight years' running Kissimmee's Big Toho Marina, Mark Detweiler knows when something's bad for business.
"It's just a shocker for the year. I've been here through a draw down, hurricanes and everything else. And all those blurps do hurt," he said.
The latest blurp is 11 miles to the south where the South Florida Water Management District has closed the navigation locks. Four locks have been shut down from there to Lake Okeechobee. No boats will be allowed through for the next seven months.
"This is a flood control project. This is protecting life and limb upstream. And we just cannot and will not put off this work," said Bill Graf, South Florida Water Management District.
It's $9 million worth of work to completely overhaul the mechanical lock system. The structure was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1960s and it's starting to show its age. The gates have opened and closed 100 to 200 times per month, every month, for nearly 50 years.
The flood gates, which sit right alongside and control lake levels in case of hurricanes, will stay in operation. But closing the navigation locks can hurt the county's fishing business.
Some bass tournaments may skip the area while the locks are under repair. That can hurt Big Toho Marina, though Detweiler knows the work has to be done.
"They have to fix it. We need to keep that navigation waterway open," Detweiler said. "In my eyes, I'd like to see them blow them up and make them bigger."
Work on the locks will be finished by New Year's Eve, in time for two big national bass tournaments scheduled for the Kissimmee chain early next year.
WFTV
