Tiny bubbles part of new strategy to strangle Lee County's blue-green algae problem

FORT MYERS - A company that manages private lakes throughout Florida is the next contractor that will try to show how it can get rid of blue-green algae that has made thousands of Lee County residents miserable.

SOLitude Lake Management, which has offices throughout the country including one in Fort Myers, tends to the ecological balance in bodies of water in Florida.

Lee County has agreed to allow the company to perform demonstration projects at locations badly affected by the blue-green algae in North Fort Myers. If it works, the experiment could broaden to Cape Coral.

The county first decided to use funds from the latest Florida Department of Environmental Protection grant to hire a Stuart-based company to perform a demonstration project. But that company had financial problems, including multiple lawsuits over failure to pay for some of its equipment.

The plug was pulled and DEP told the county it could retargeted some of the $750,000 grant to algae removal and cleaning up marine life killed by red tide along the shore.

AECom, which was sucking algae out of canals in Cape Coral and carting it off for processing, would continue its work in Cape Coral, Assistant County Manager David Harner said.