Boat captains discuss water quality issues at CCCIA meeting
The Cape Coral Construction Industry Association held one if the biggest dinner meetings in its history Thursday, with the main topic being what’s been on everyone’s minds: water quality and what can be done to improve it.
Chris Whittman and Daniel Andrews, founders of Captain for Clean Water, were the guest speakers, who relayed to the local industry leaders that the greatest weapon they have are those who care enough to write to their lawmakers to put cumulative pressure on them to act.
After more than 200 RSVPs were received, the meeting was moved from the Palmetto Pines Country Club to the Westin Cape Coral Resort.
This meeting was anticipated to be among CCCIA’s most important, as water quality has a tremendous impact on the city and the industry.
“We’ve seen it from top to bottom. Tourism numbers are off. We look at people who want to build here, it starts with real estate. If they’re not selling lots, they’re not building the houses,” Johnson said. “We want clean water so we can continue our thriving industry. When you have more canals than Venice, Italy, water is our bread and butter.”
“This is a topic that affects everybody, not only construction, but real estate and people who own property,” said CCCIA president Ed Ramos. “This is our quality of life and it affects our economy, health, everything.”
Whittman, a lifelong Floridian, said that water has always been a big part of his life, as have water quality issues that seem to arise every summer during rainy season.
That changed in 2016, when heavy rains during tourist season impacted the economy, including fishermen like himself, forcing him and many to the sidelines.
“That hit is economically. Daniel and I were forced out of work. We saw it day after day, the worst we had ever seen it, and it was getting worse.” Whittman said. “As we talked about it, we asked ourselves ‘Why haven’t we done anything?'”
They once thought the problem was too big for two fishermen. Whittman said they really just needed to be more educated. He said he didn’t want to watch bureaucrats point fingers or send out e-mails, but they had had enough with the state’s poor water management practices.
That led them to start Captains for Clean Water, a non-profit organization advocating for clean water and healthy estuaries in the state.
“Talking to people. We learned that there were thousands of people who thought the same way we did. The more we learned the science-based solutions and what got us here in the first place, the more we realized if people knew what we now knew, this issue would have been fixed years ago,” Whitman said.
The problem has been the lack of political will that Whittman said can be countered by the masses using their voices and their votes, which is also a big challenge.
Andrews said another problem is political ignorance, relaying a story of his visit to the South Florida Water Management District meeting that morning, which Cape Coral Mayor Joe Coviello (who was present) and other mayors attended.
“Their solution is deep injection wells. Every scientist, stakeholder and individual went up to testify against it,” Andrews said. “They are also refusing to give water to environments that need it, so when rainy season starts, the lake is already full and they flush the toilet on us.”
Andrews said the board accused them of having an agenda and that the executive director said it would take 100 years for them to do all the projects to clean the water. All requests were shot down.
Whittman, as well as many local politicians, have said the algae is a symptom of a broken water management program that has created algae blooms, ecosystem collapse and economic hardship.
“The way to fix it is to fix the root cause. The water flow was changed and manipulated and every year the issue gets worse,” Whittman said.
To learn more about Captains for Clean Water or to make a donation, go to www.CaptainsForCleanWater.org