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.

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.

Visit the NRCS Florida Web site.

"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.