Captiva, like any island, is a body of land surrounded by water. Or at least it used to be surrounded by water. Back in the 1990s, Blind Pass filled with sand and closed completely. The small body of water that once flowed under the bridge at the south end of Captiva was no more, and our island physically joined with Sanibel.

Almost as soon as the Pass sanded in, the local environment began to deteriorate. Some changes were fairly dramatic and quite noticeable. For example, the stagnating waters trapped in

the dead-end of the Pass, in Roosevelt Channel, in Dinkins Bayou, and other nearby areas began sprouting mats of green algae. Other changes were more subtle, but more profound. Gamefish such as snook, sea trout, and redfish abandoned the waters of the Pass and its environs, leaving only mullet behind to thrive in the oxygen-deprived waters. Vast swaths of sea grass died from being buried under the accumulating sediments or being choked by the ever-spreading algae.

Residents living along Blind Pass saw these changes immediately, and rightly became alarmed about the environmental degradation. The Captiva Erosion Prevention District, responding to those concerns, began an effort to re-open Blind Pass that continues to this day. There was one effort to simply dredge an opening through the accumulated sand. That attempt, part of an initial demonstration project to see if such a simple fix could take care of the problem, ended in failure when the new opening sanded in within 10 days. (However, homeowners and fishermen along the Pass and up and down the beach from the opening reported near-instant jumps in gamefish in and around the opening. Snook returned to stretches of Captiva beach that had not seen these fish since the Pass sanded in, and a tarpon was hooked in the Pass the morning after it was opened. When the opening refilled with sand, the gamefish went away and the water quality sagged once again.)

Engineers and even casual observers of that first attempted opening agreed that one of the primary reasons the Pass sanded back in so quickly was the tremendous backlog of sand east of the bridge. In past years when the Pass had closed, it quickly re-

opened because the deeper channel back along Buck Key allowed enough water flow to push all the accumulated sand back out into the Gulf. But by the late 1990s, a tremendous volume of sand had built up east of the bridge. That sand was not touched during the first opening attempt, and the flowing waters simply picked it up and dumped it in the dredged channel. Any new attempt to re-open Blind Pass would have to involve removing the sands east of the bridge. That, in turn, would be a rather massive effort--one that would come to involve the CEPD, Lee County agencies, Florida state agencies, Federal agencies, and the Army Corps of Engineers.

The current effort is a comprehensive approach to getting the Pass re-opened. It is, all in all, a daunting project. In the end, the mass and volume of paperwork and permits required may well equal or exceed the mass and volume of sand that must be removed. With such bureaucratic hurdles to leap, it's no wonder the project's timeline has slipped from the original 2004 opening date to its present late-2007 projected completion date.

Yet, the work forges ahead. Robert Neal, project director for Blind Pass, was kind enough to bring us up to date. He tells us that the state of Florida has issued requests for additional information, and the CEPD is responding to those requests. In addition, the federal permit process has been started to get approval for the project. This, says Neal, is the most time-critical element. It is generally a 6-month process, with three months required just to get on the schedule for permit submission, and another three months needed for permit review and completion.

Among the top concerns of federal and state authorities are the possible impacts of re-opening the Pass on endangered species. Mangroves, sea turtles, and sea grass are the listed species most likely to be impacted, and the project needs to come up with some sort of mitigation plan to deal with those impacts. The turtles may not be much of a problem as there has only been one recorded turtle nest in the filled area of Blind Pass. Likewise, the mangroves may not be very heavily impacted as the limits of the dredging area have been defined to minimize mangrove impacts.

Grass: Our Opinion
The plight of the remaining patch of sea grass in Blind Pass deserves some attention. The sea-grass beds of Pine Island Sound have been under a lot of stress for the last few years, primarily due to fresh-water releases coming down the Caloosahatchee River. Further, the proliferation of various forms of algae in the poorly flushed areas of grass bed have been slowly killing the grass. Indeed, the small patch of sea grass that remains in Blind Pass is doomed to be suffocated by sediment and algal growth if the nothing is done.