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Letter to the Editor - Ft. Myers
News-Press March 31, 2007
Aggregate madness
I have lived off East Corkscrew Road for the last nine years. In
those years, I have enjoyed the beauty of endangered animals and birds
frequenting my backyard and getting their meals out of my small pond.
Lee County is the last frontier for the heavy industrial community to
pillage with "strip mine” type usage. Since 2001, we have been assaulted
with mining application after mining application, finally realizing that
big business has its eyes on this area, just like they had for the Lakes
belt in the Miami area.
Article after article in the paper seems to speak of how we “must have
aggregate for the economic future of South Florida.” Only a brief
mention is made of what we will be giving up for these aggregate mines.
The arguments put forth by these mines are the same ones used by the
sugar industry, while they are destroying Lake Okeechobee with pump back
fertilizer, on the south side, and cow run off on the north side. I have
fished the Big O since the ’80s and I can tell you that the lake is
dead.
There are 2 feet of muck on the bottom, where once sand was, and the
algae blooms, have had massive fish kills, which has devastated the fish
population and reproduction capabilities.
This mining thing in east Lee County is the same issue really.
Gain now to sacrifice our environment for our grandkids. Aggregate can
be obtained cost effective elsewhere, and we do not have to ruin our
DRGR to get it. Mines expose what God has protected for thousands of
years: our water supply.
Digging a 100-foot hole through water caverns, once forever, exposes
those underground rivers to surface pollution from the air. We need to
say “no” to this heavy industrial type development like we are asked to
say “no” to illegal drugs! It is not "need" but "greed" and all the
statistics of aggregate supply tell us so.
We now, according to Lee County staff figures, have over 70 years of
supply without the Youngquest mine, which is now in full swing.
Stop the madness now, and enjoy the beauty of clean water, endangered
species habitat, and fabulous residential living 100 years from now.
BILL LYTELL
Estero
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