To the Editor:

A town hall meeting will take place on Feb. 25 to discuss future expansion of central sewer service on Pine Island. The meeting will be from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Fishers of Men Lutheran Church. It will be hosted by Commissioner Bob Janes, and a wide variety of county officials (including county utilities, planning, attorney, and management personnel) will be there to provide information and answer questions.

This issue arose last summer when the county staff asked the county commissioners to change the land plan to designate coastal rural Pine Island as a county central sewer service area (coastal rural was the only part of Greater Pine Island not already so designated). Voting on the land plan change was postponed at Commissioner Janes’ request to allow time to hold this town meeting and get Pine Islanders’ input.

In my opinion, expansion of central sewer service on Pine Island is inevitable — the only issue is timing. The land plan change will not mean that extensive expansion will occur in the near future; however, it will mean that the county utilities department will have authority to expand central sewer to any road or neighborhood in Greater Pine Island any time it feels the following conditions have or will soon be met:

(1) They have sufficient plant capacity to handle additional customers,

(2) They have a pipe connection to the road or neighborhood, and

(3) There are enough customers on that road or neighborhood to justify the expense.

Florida state law requires that homeowners hook into central sewer if it is “available,” which generally means that a gravity line must be located along the boundary to the homeowner’s property. All of Matlacha, Cherry Estates and most commercial facilities in Pine Island Center and St. James City are already hooked into the Pine Island Wastewater Plant, which is located south of the Lee Coop electrical substation on the east side of Stringfellow Road at Masters Landing.

Neither an estimate of costs to each household nor a time schedule is available. These and many other questions should be addressed at the Feb. 25 meeting. All homeowners on Pine Island should attend. Mark your calendars.

Phil Buchanan

St. James City