Letter to the Editor
Lee County, FL
Residents south of us, in Collier County, are concerned about a company that has filed to drain our southwest Florida aquifers to make way for oil drilling and fracking-injecting caustic chemicals in the fragile limestone to get to minerals, gas and oil. In order to address the issues they have formed a new group called Preserve Our Paradise. In the meantime, Lee County residents are seeing our waterways polluted by algae, red tide and fertilizer runoff.
Our local water supply includes a network of caverns 100 feet below us in the fragile limestone, and this water supply is invaluable. At a time when Floridians are concerned about algae, red tide, sinkholes and wells running dry we should not be faced with additional worries about companies from other states like Texas, being granted permits to use up valuable well water for fracking that should otherwise be saved for residential use.
The pollution will have a tremendous negative economic impact on our area’s businesses, residents, and tourist destinations. Our economy is dependent on having clean water to draw tourists and protect our fishing industry. We need to work together to preserve our drinking water supply not only for ourselves but for our children and grandchildren.
For more information on how our source of drinking water is connected across county lines, visit: http://www.floridasprings.org/expedition/webexpedition/
Debbie Jordan, Democrat, for County Commission Seat 4