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Originally published in USA Today by Mary Kay Robbins-Kralapp and Howard Simon on December 14, 2024

In southwestern Florida, where the Caloosahatchee River empties into Pine Island Sound and Gulf of Mexico, three citizen advocates for clean water face crippling retaliatory financial penalties from their local government.

For Dan Carney, Jim Collier and Kevin Sparks, being able to cast a line in the waters off Cape Coral is what brought them to buy a home and move to the community.

“Access to world-class fishing and the environment that supports it,” Dan Carney told the City Council, is what motivated him. Collier was chairperson of the Waterway Advisory Board; Sparks noted that “fishing is what brought me to Cape Coral.” The three joined with the Matlacha Civic Association, Calusa Waterkeeper, and the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation to challenge the removal of the Chiquita Lock on the Caloosahatchee.

Original Story