The Vocal Minority Strikes Again

I attended the City Council Meeting on 12/8/25 to express my support for the proposed Coastal Habitat and Water Quality (CHAWQ) Canal Dredging Project. One only has to visit the King’s Bay Restoration Project in Crystal River, as I had during my tenure as a City Councilor, to see the effects of bottom dredging and seagrass planting on improving water quality. Once polluted, the area and its feeder canals are clean, teeming with fish, and support a rich bottom of seaweed and other plants since their dredging was completed a couple of years ago.  

The proposed CHAWQ Initiative canal dredging project is no panacea for the source of the problem if it continues;dumping grass clippings, tree trimmings, and construction debris into the canals by some unscrupulous residents, landscapers, and builders.CHAWQ will remove the sludge at the bottom of the canals, the source of the chemical imbalance responsible for algae overgrowth, death of seaweed and other plant life, and the dramatic reduction of certain species of fish. 

Unfortunately, a vocal minority of canal residents and others oppose the Chawk project and instead are driving a very expensive, band-aid approach with their Advanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT) proposal that treats the water, but does not remove the sludge, the underlying source of the problem. 

The overwhelming majority of Marco Island property owners do not live on canals and will see no direct benefit of spending millions of their tax dollars to clean canal water. There are no launching places for non-motorized vessels (kayaks, canoes, paddleboards) that allow residents not living on canals access to these waterways. Many folks who live along the inland canals seem to think that they own those bodies of water (they don’t) and do not want anyone, even fellow Marco Islanders, on their waterways. 

Spending millions of taxpayer dollars on an Advanced Wastewater Treatment facility that does not address the problem source will only benefit the vocal minority and force the rest of us to pay for it.