Cape Coral City Council deciding on water pipeline, vacation property tax

On Wednesday, the Cape Coral City Council will discuss issues that include bringing more much-needed water into the community and charging homeowners taxes on vacation rental properties.

During the dry season, the water levels in Cape Coral canals can get dangerously low. The city council will vote whether or not to approve what is essentially the final step of a pipeline project, meaning they would be able to start the horizontal drilling soon and Cape Coral residents would be even closer to seeing more irrigation water coming in.

The pipeline is a reclaimed water line that starts in Fort Myers. It takes extra reclaimed water and disposes of it in an environmentally friendly way. Instead of going into the Caloosahatchee River, it will go to the Everest Reclaimed Water Facility in Cape Coral.

“Bringing more irrigation water to our city, which is what it will do once the once the line is put in, and we’ll be collecting reclaimed water from the city of Fort Myers,” said Cape Coral City Councilman Tom Hayden. “That will help us, especially during the dry season when our canals might get low, to fortify those canals with water, and how important that is, too, for water levels and pressure, especially for the fire department when they use water from our canals.”

City water regulations will to change, however, meaning Cape Coral residents will still have to stick to watering only two days a week. If approved at Wednesday’s meeting, the process of drilling under the river and getting that pipeline installed will be ready to go.

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