Plans change for Eden Pines canal system

As part of the canal restoration demonstration project currently underway, engineers had planned to pump dirty canal water out of the Eden Pines Colony canal system onto a wetlands area adjacent and allow supposedly cleaner water from the basin outside the system to fill in.

All in an effort to clean up the degraded water in the residential canal system.

That plan didn’t sit well with local National Key Deer Refuge officials who weren’t terribly keen on mechanical pumps dragging admittedly crappy water out of a canal and dumping it into wetlands areas that served their indigenous fauna and flora population.

Final answer: No pumping out of the canal.

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On the lookout for pens

I have always been one to admit that I am a consummate pen thief.

There is no writing instrument that is safe it it’s within arm’s reach.

I have a collection of pens that would rival a manufacturer’s warehouse.

Knowing all this, I have to ask myself the question…why can I never find a damn pen when I need one?

For instance, last week I was driving to Cudjoe Key. I got a call on the cell phone and it was someone who wanted to give me information about another number I really needed to call.

I keep notebooks in the car. I need them frequently and very seldom do I use one while driving. But I do.

My handwriting is so bad that only I can read it all the time anyway, so I take notes in the car without even looking at the notebook. I scribble what I hear, keeping my eyes on the road, and decipher it later when I need the information.

But this day, it wasn’t the notebook giving me fits. It was the collection of ink pens that usually fills my dash.

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Make spot for permitting needs

As more and more sewer collection pipes go in the ground throughout the Cudjoe Regional Wastewater System service area, the time grows ever closer when property owners will have to start working their way through the county permitting system to hook their drains into the pipes in the street.

Permitting office officials have estimated that more than 7,500 permits will have to be pulled by property owners before everyone gets hooked into the central pipe that will flow eventually into the regional treatment plant on Blimp Road on Cudjoe Key.

Just last month, the Monroe Board of County Commissioners decided that establishing a temporary office, for probably four years or so, was an expense it didn’t want to take on, particularly when there is talk of the budget rising anyway this year by three percent or more.

But the proposal shouldn’t die, particularly when initial budget requests reveal that there is a proposal to add personnel to the building department to do exactly what the folks in the Lower Keys will need done in the coming years.

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