Water Quality: Guest Post by Mike Mullins
It’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
January 24th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
There is no worst sight than walking our beaches and seeing the dead fish and the smell is appalling. Thw politicans really need to address this issue and regulate the releases. Yes, this, to us, is a major issue.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:59 am
We have a home in Wightman Lane which is in a rental program we have owned the house for 6 years and have in total been coming to Captiva from the UK for 10 years.
This summer we spent 5 weeks there. For two of those weeks we could not use our pool or ground floor because of the overpowering smell of our neighbours malfunctioning sceptic tanks (at least 2 homes systems). One evening we ate at Key lime Bistro everybody out side had to vacate their tables because of the overpowering smell of sewage. There usually is the smell of sceptic tanks around most of the restuarants in Captiva.
I had to visit SanCap medical centre for a chest, nose and ear infections and was given a dose of antibiotics and advised by the Doctor not to swim in the sea (this was a week before Blind Pass Beach was closed due to human sewage contamination). Another of our party got a gastrointestinal infection and was again given antibiotics and advised to keep out of the sea.
In the homes guest book I have had comments from guests whose children have got infections, the Doctor said it was common to treat visitors for such infections.
We are pouring poorly treated and in some cases untreated sewage into a fragile barrier island. We are destroying the very things we love about Captiva the beaches, water, fishing, wild life.
Economically are we not also driving guests away and lowering the values of our properties, who is going to buy a home on Captiva if the ‘wind is blowing in the wrong direction’?
How do we get Captiva on a proper sewage system, why is it not already