‘Nuisance vegetation’ take over Cape Coral lake, neighbors say

People living along Lake Kennedy in Cape Coral said lily pads and grass have taken over. They said they are unable to go out on their boats, fish or enjoy the lake they pay to live on.

It might not look like much, but the overgrown foliage is not what people living along Lake Kennedy signed up for when they moved there.

Kenny Belford moved into his condominium along the Cape Coral lake 6 years ago. For the last several months, he said the lake could no longer be used for recreational activities.

Jimmy Prata is the president of the Condo Association.

“We don’t see people fishing anymore here,” Prata said. “Usually in the summer, this lake is busy. It hasn’t been that busy this year.”

Locals call it the “nuisance vegetation.” They said it has made boats unusable and fishing, not an option.

Dr. James Douglass, an associate professor of Marine & Ecological Sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University, clarifies that it is freshwater.

“So it’s technically not seagrass, but they do a lot of the same things,” Douglass said. “I will expect these to grow and fill up the canal and they will need to be harvested at some point.”

People who are living with it just want it gone.

“I recognize this is going to be there,” Belford said. “But they could get ahead of it at the time it starts first growing and take steps to ensure that it doesn’t reach a point where you can’t even utilize the lake.”

The Lee County Mosquito & Hyacinth Control Districts said the following in a statement:

The Lee County Hyacinth Control District (LCHCD) has met with the City of Cape Coral to review the District’s plan for addressing the large amount of tape grass in the Shamrock Lakes/Kennedy system. The District’s approach involves mechanically removing the floating grass, providing targeted treatments with aquatic herbicides, and restocking the system with triploid grass carp (a sterile fish that consumes the aquatic vegetation).

The District has already started removing the floating grass from parts of the system using a mechanical harvester and has begun targeted applications of herbicide over the last week. Releasing Triploid Carp into the water body will begin in August and continue through October.

While these efforts are underway, the LCHCD is waiting for the City of Cape Coral to provide centralized access to the system via a boat ramp on city-owned property. This will expedite the Districts ability to address the tape grass issue by providing closer access to problem areas, allowing more work to be completed during the day.