Water Quality: Guest Post by Mike Mullins
Sunday, December 30th, 2007It’s Deja “Poo,” all over again
“Time and tide wait for no man,” says the old proverb. Without doubt, neither will wait for Sanibel and Captiva to come to grips with dangerous sewage in our waters.
We well recall this year’s repeated beach closings. And last year, visitors became ill from eating local shellfish. Once again, E-coli was found, waters and beaches were closed. At the time, Sanibel Mayor Mick Denham and other politicians protested the problem. Fingers were pointed, wheels were spun, and an allegedly “offending” package plants was purchased by the city. As is wont to happen, the tide turned, washing away the symptoms along with the resolve.
Time, if not the tides, will tell whether concrete steps will have been taken to address our underlying water quality predicament.
As to the meeting discussed in the December 22, Captiva Current article, re Sanibel/Captiva water quality cooperation: some of us had been informed that Sanibel had spare sewage capacity. We were quickly disabused of this notion on December 14 when Mayor Denham announced his earlier notions of sufficient capacity were wrong.
In essence, the meeting revealed that Sanibel is positively encouraging: that is, positively encouraging Captiva to help itself.
In addition to offering unspecified cooperation, the Mayor stressed that Captivans consider adopting voluntary measures regarding septic maintenance and inspections. Alas, the severity of the “e-coli” message seems to have gone out with the tide and we can expect to see little action about this until the next beach closure headline and consequent frantic political protestations. When that happens, and it WILL happen, we should expect zero recognition that today’s actions (or inactions) will have only represented a Pyrrhic victory.
How many beach closings or sick visitors will it take for our governments–both Lee County and Sanibel–to do more than just create an appearance of action? We all claim to recognize the obvious risks of poor water quality to health, economy, and quality of life. But, do we?
I’m tempted to say politicians too often choose to put their heads in the sand, but perhaps in this case, doing so is precluded by the fact that the sand may well have been polluted by gratuitous effluent.
Mike Mullins