City to fix Cape canal plugged with debris

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CAPE CORAL, Fla. Thick pockets of tape grass combined with trash and dead fish fill a canal near Hancock Bridge Parkway.

“Something’s got to be going on with this water,” nearby resident James Fagin said. “I don’t know what it is, but something needs to be done because if this keeps up, there’ll be nothing but sea grass from one side of this canal to the other.”

The canal may not be a pleasant sight, but this is a natural process and the issue will go away on its own, city officials said.

The tape grass grows naturally on the bottom of the canal and grows even more when canal levels are low, as they were during the recent drought, city officials said.

The grass breaks off and floats to the surface, eventually deteriorating.

John Thomas, who has lived on the canal for 30 years, says this is a regular occurrence.

“This is nature,” he said. “This is part of Florida.”

City officials opened the weir at Hancock Bridge to speed up the dissolution of the grass and expect the problem to resolve itself in a few days.

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