To the editor:

I saw some of The Breeze articles about the erosion prevention project at Jaycee Park around 1999-2000 so I reached out to Lee County and found out more about the Visitors Convention Bureau Resilient Coastlines project here at what’s now Jaycee Park.

It’s a very effective living Shoreline project for which you can find examples and details on the Army Corp Engineers website. And really great diagrams that would be perfect for a new article.

They just use multiple steps of natural materials and how they all work together to greatly reduce erosion and reduce storm surge, flooding and high winds in neighborhood.

Regardless of the Australian pines’ invasive nature, they were an effective windbreak and absorbed so much salt and brackish water, it saved native plants which are harmed or killed by saltwater. And those shallow roots combined with a deep roots forming another layer of mesh like rip rap to hold the soil in place. They were actually shored up as a part of this environmental project!

Without the neighborhood’s windbreak and soil retention our homes are now at much greater risk of flooding storm surge, erosion and high winds and we are still in hurricane season.

As of the time I submitted this letter, the project still did have permits from the South Florida Water Management District.

All this damage is being done by with no other approvals and the damage is starting to hurt people and endangered wildlife.

The sawdust is so thick that it’s hard for some people to breathe and it’s landing on the river where it creates a huge increase in algae blooms and other hazards for wildlife there.

That includes smalltooth sawfish and manatee often seen just offshore. There were even signs at Jaycee Park directing anyone fishing there to release smalltooth sawfish if they were hooked.

There are other hazards with the sidewalks and traffic that a city official says will take weeks to address, but that’s another story.

Citizens had warned and questioned at every city council meeting and every other opportunity about all the hazards and everything they saw that could go wrong. They’ve been around a while and have seen things like this happen.

But their questions were never answered and the concerns were never addressed and now we’re seeing just the first results.

Sadly I think as the destruction continues this can be a weekly topic of the next unexpected impact this project is going to have to devastate this neighborhood and have a huge impact on our city budget and resources because of the unnecessary environmental emergencies and flood damage that potentially will cost nearby seniors their homes, or worse.

Heather O’Connell

Cape Coral