To the editor:

This past week, I had the privilege of attending the Everest Neighborhood Association meeting for an update of the Caloosahatchee Connect Project presented by Cape Coral’s project manager and the contractors president, Kaye Molnar. For the past several months Everest Parkway, the main artery for the Everest neighborhood has been torn up laying underground pipe from the Caloosahatchee River to Cape Coral’s Everest water treatment plant. The underground section of the project is now completed.

Phase 1 and 2 of the above ground pipe assembly was announced. The full length of westbound Everest Parkway will be utilized to build and assemble the connecting pipe to be pushed through the hole now being drilled under the Caloosahatchee riverbed. This pipe will connect Cape Coral to Fort Myers waste water system. Westbound Everest Parkway will be closed to traffic; the cross-through intersections will be limited. The pipe will be elevated over usable intersections for cars to pass under. The total time for this project will be over one year.

During the hour-long update, followed by a question-and-answer period, not one complaint or harsh word was voiced by the residents of Everest Parkway against the project. All questions were positive, asking how to work and live around this major inconvenience.

The residents of the Everest Parkway neighborhood are the heroes in Cape Coral’s effort to a better environment, a pollution-free river, and a cleanup of the partially treated wastewater that Fort Myers has been dumping directly into the Caloosahatchee River.

The city of Cape Coral and its homeowners have spent several million dollars expanding our waste water treatment system, eliminating septic tanks in the Spreader Canal water body area, and replacing storm water catch basins which drain to this waterway. Compare this to our island neighbors Pine Island and Matlacha, who are just starting to talk about cleaning up their septic tanks.

Jim Jeskie

VP/Treasurer SWCCAC

South West Cape Coral Action Committee