Battle Looms Over Lake Apopka Restoration

A fight over the heart and soul of polluted Lake Apopka went public Wednesday, with the champions of a time-consuming, $189 million restoration effort on one side and, on the other, a group that said dredging, invasive weeds and concrete rubble on the lake bottom could bring back the giant lake's glory days of sport fishing much more quickly.

The First Annual Lake Apopka Restoration Summit was more than a curious side show about a huge aquatic ecosystem that has suffered from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides since the 1940s. In an era of rising angst over the quantity and quality of Florida's water supplies, the extraordinarily shallow lake is the fourth-largest in the state, covering 50 square miles of west Orange and south Lake counties with 53 billion gallons of green water.

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