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Florida Hurricane Canal Cleanup about Halfway Done in Cape Coral
About half of Cape Coral's canals have been cleaned of hurricane-related
debris with crews working to finish the job by the Sept. 15 deadline.
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residents of El Dorado
Parkway in Cape Coral, Florida, observe the hurricane damage done to their
neighborhood (photo: STEPHEN HAYFORD/news-press.com) |
The Natural Resources Conservation
Service has five land-based crews and three barge-based crews cleaning the
majority of the Cape's 440 saltwater and freshwater canals. Bill Harp, inspector
working with the NRCS, said the majority of the canal work is going on south of
Pine Island Road. The cleanup began in early December.
The two main contractors working to clean up Cape Coral's canals are Marine
Contracting Group based out of Punta Gorda, which is in charge of the marine
operation, and Tag Grinding of Georgia, working the land-based operation. The
two contractors were hired by the city, but the funding comes from the NRCS.
"The crews are moving fast cleaning the canals, considering the Australian
pines are one of the main culprits that are not easy to clean out," Harp said.
"We have also found a lot of construction debris, like aluminum siding, but it
is mostly trees that we have been encountering."
Harp says the best inspectors of Cape Coral's canals have been residents.
"We can't be out there all the time and when it is high tide, there are things
we might miss," he said. "Residents are able to be there at low tide when debris
shows up, and they are surely quick to call and notify us of debris still in
their canal. Residents usually call the city and the city relays the message to
the contractors.
"People don't like it when they think we have missed cleaning out their canal."
The $2 million job is being funded by the NRCS with the
city of Cape Coral picking up 25 percent
or $500,000 of those costs.
"The city originally was going to go through (the
Federal Emergency Management Agency) to get the funding to clean out the
canals because the agency would have covered 90 percent of the costs," said
Niles Glasgow, head of NRCS. "When FEMA found out the money was for the canals,
that's when they pulled the funding and the city had to come to us."
FEMA covers only land-based operations. The agency denied the city funding to
clean out the canals.
Glasgow said the NRCS has $80 million in contract agreements through the state
of Florida, and Cape Coral's funding is not negotiable.
"We only have that certain amount of money to work with and must get the work
done by the deadline because after that date the funding is cut off," he said.
Story by Angela Hill,
Times-Press,
Fort Myers, Florida.
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