Some water managers concerned over proposal to move south Lee into Big Cypress Basin

The idea of lumping south Lee County into a different water management basin is working its way through committees in Tallahassee, but some South Florida Water Management District governing board members expressed concern Thursday about the proposed change.

The problem started decades ago, when the original water management district lines were drawn.

"If you go back to the creation of the water management district in the ‘70s, the legislation was brilliant as they used science to define the boundaries of the water management districts," said board chair and Sanibel resident Chauncey Goss during a scheduled monthly meeting. "It depended on hydrology. But that’s not true in the basin. If you look at the Big Cypress Basin, that’s the one place you draw (a political line) on a map, and that happens to be the Lee County and Collier County border."