No warning signs at many SWFL waterways containing fecal matter

Enter at your own risk – that is one woman’s message tonight as she fears a stretch of the Estero River is polluted with waste and sewage that can make people sick.

Florida Department of Environmental Protection calls the waterway, “verified impaired.” It means the water is polluted with bacteria, usually human or animal waste, above what the state claims are safe.

“I felt so upset about the lack of response from the Dept. of Health to not only post a sign there, but on all the impaired rivers that have enterococci, [which is] a high fecal indicator,” Holley Rauen, a ranger at the Calusa Waterkeeper said.

But the Florida Dept. of Health told WINK News it only posts signs near beaches. Rauen posted the signs herself.

“I thought to myself, ‘we need to take this into our own hands and warn people,'” Rauen said.

The water can cause gastrointestinal problems or if it gets into a person’s eye or a cut on the body, an infection.

There are many other rivers, streams and canals in Southwest Florida with the same problem that have no warning signs.

“If there is high levels of enterococcus in the Estero River or other rivers or other bodies of water in the area, then that could be a cause for concern about sewage contamination in the waterway,” said Dr. Matthew Swearingen, an assistant professor of Microbiology at Florida Gulf Coast University.