North Shore Park woes draw attention
David Reese remembers a day when he used to fish, swim and sail on the Caloosahatchee River, especially in North Shore Park in North Fort Myers.
Today’s river is nothing like the one he remembers, where the constant runoffs from Lake Okeechobee have threatened to kill the river and the tourism Lee County needs to make it profitable.
On Saturday, Reese, State Senate candidate Jason Maughan, District 27, and others went to the park to collect samples of the water and discuss solutions on how the water can be cleaned.
Currently, cleaning that water seems to be a daunting challenge. Most days, people can’t go into the water as the area is lined with signs advising nobody enter the water because of high bacteria levels.
On June 9, the Florida Department of Health in Lee County put up an advisory for people not to go into the water because of high levels of the enterococcus bacteria.
Maughan, who lives on Sanibel and who will face incumbent Lizbeth Benacquisto in the Aug. 30 Republican primary, said he was disappointed the beach here has been shut down for so long. He blamed Big Sugar as a main contributor to the problem.
“I have a big jar of water full of algae and pollution from Lake O, and a small jar from water that’s locally. That represents the issue that we have to look after our own house to make sure the infrastructure is correct,” Maughan said. “So it can’t be used against us by Big Sugar to say they need to clean their own house.”
Maughan said there is an intent of “paralysis by analysis,” where there are things people want done, but the powers that be are just talking about them and not making a decision.
Mauhan attended the South Florida Water Management District meeting in Fort Myers Thursday and was displeased with what he says was inaction other than lots of backslapping.
“That plays into the hands of the polluters because the status quo is maintained for years and decades. Do we need to be subsidizing the sugar industry?” Maughan said. “We need direct action. We need to purchase the land to the south, retention from C-43 and slowing the flow from Kissimmee, and a better plan for east/west releases.”
Maughan went to the park at the foot of the U.S. 41 bridge and saw the coffee-colored water, where he and Abigail Neill, a member of Maughan’s campaign who also attends Brown University, filled another jug of water, which was also less than crystal clear.
Neill said that more and more, that’s what the water in Sanibel is becoming, and that was especially true this winter, when an abnormally wet weather bought Lake O discharges here, bringing the problem to the forefront during the peak of tourist season.
“The water has always been a big part of our lives. So, it’s sad to come home and see the water turn brown every time I come back,” Neill said. “Whenever they drain the water from Lake O, it affects the water there. We get red tide blooms close to shore and it affects people’s health.”
As a child, Reese said he joined the Edison Sailing School to learn to sail and that it was nothing to fish and swim.
“There were no warnings that if you fell out of your boat you could get e coli or staph infections if you scrape your knee,” Reese said. “I want the river to go back to where it’s clean again, where we can fish and swim and not worry about things like that.”