News-Press.com

Cape Coral must fund its water projects

City work doesn't make grade for state money

By Brian Liberatore
bliberatore@news-press.com

May 9, 2008

http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200805090110/NEWS0101/805090399

About $1.9 million worth of water management projects will fall on the shoulders of Cape Coral taxpayers after the state turned down funding.

State officials say it's a combination of lean times and increased demand from communities looking for help managing daunting environmental issues.

"We have limited resources as well," said Phil Flood, who directs the lower west coast service center for the South Florida Water Management District. "We have to pick and choose our projects, we want to spread the money around some but we want to put the money to the best uses."

Officials from the water management district sent four projects from Cape Coral along with about 60 other projects to the state Legislature this year looking for about $20 million in funding. The Legislature turned down funding for all but $4 million worth of work in the Estero Basin.

"We were a little disappointed," said Terri Hall, the city's legislative coordinator. "We're out here trying to do everything we can to help our environment and they're getting the money out to the other coast where they're doing everything backwards."

Cape Coral was looking for state funding for four projects:

• $500,000 to help pay for canal stormwater storage wells. The city is digging wells that will allow them to hold millions of gallons of stormwater runoff during the rainy season in wells thousands of feet below the surface. The water can then be pulled to the surface during the dry season.

• $898,000 to help pay for new inlets in the city's utility expansion district. The new inlets installed in the swales slowly take in stormwater giving the nearby grass time to absorb contaminants in the water.

• $300,000 to replace inlets and catch basins in older parts of the city.

• $100,000 to improve weir structures on the city's canals. The weirs allow the city to hold back more canal water when it's needed during the dry season.

The projects will go forward, according to city spokesperson Connie Barron, without the state funding. Money for any improvements in the new utility expansion districts will come from special assessments to those receiving new utilities, while some of the other improvements will go to local taxpayers.

As municipalities on the state's east coast and elsewhere adopt some of the water control devices ubiquitous in Cape Coral, state funds are getting stretched thin, Flood noted.

"Lee and Collier counties have been getting the lion's share (of funding) for a number of years," Flood said. "Now as you get Miami and Broward coming and trying to retrofit their systems. There's more competition."

State Sen. Burt L. Saunders, R-Naples, offered a conciliatory explanation to Mayor Eric Feichthaler in an April 29 letter.

"The Legislature made every effort to equitably divide the limited monies available throughout the 67 counties of Florida," Saunders wrote. "Hopefully, the city's requests will be funded in future years when there is more revenue available."

Feichthaler had written to the senator in April stressing the importance of water quality in the Cape and looking for financial support.

Flood said he was hopeful the state's purse strings would loosen as the economy picked up.

"I think when the economy's good, we can get more projects going," Flood said. "Right now times are really tough and there are a lot of people lobbying for money. It's tough to convince a legislature of the whole that the Caloosahatchee is much more important than some other project or another issue all together."

Mary Ann Parsons, who heads Cape Water Action, a group charged with preserving the Cape's canal system, stressed that even without state funding, there were things the Cape could do to improve its water quality.

"I think in these economic times with budget cuts we may not get the big projects," Parsons said. "But there are simple things that we can do. Things as simple as not littering, not overusing fertilizers. These are all things we can do that don't cost money."