Sanibel water quality called into question

SANIBEL – Cece Ceballos of Cape Coral is cutting her beach trip short because she is not happy with the water quality.

"It should be clearer," she said. "It was better when I first came here 11 years ago."

She noticed a line others have too. A viewer sent in a picture showing a clear cut dividing lighter and darker water.

We showed the picture to Sanibel's natural resources director, James Evans. He said it's a natural line showing the freshwater from the Caloosahatchee meeting the salt water.

"That's typical during the rainy season," he said. "We get large volumes of water that come from the watershed. That will push the freshwater plume out into San Carlos Bay and that's what's you're seeing in that photograph."

The bay is recovering leaps ahead of what it was last year.

Evans said the majority of the freshwater coming now is from rain and the Caloosahatchee watershed. Very little is actually coming from Lake Okeechobee.

"You'll notice the water clarity this year compared to last year is significantly better than it was," Evans said.

Victoria Raymond from North Fort Myers has noticed some of the improvement.

"I'm seeing a little bit more of the nursery fish out there," she said. "We do a lot of fishing and boating and you don't see the blackness that you've seen last year."

But Raymond and Evans can agree with Ceballos that there is still room for improvement.

"Fix it please," Ceballos said. Please fix it. That's all we ask."