LABELLE, Fla. — People living at the Port LaBelle Marina are raising environmental concerns, saying that the solid waste pump at the marina was out of commission for several months.
Robert McCausland said the situation forced him to take his boat to another marina along the Caloosahatchee River that had a working pump to get his waste removed. But he fears that some of his fellow boaters might have dumped theirs into the water at the marina.
"Of course you can't prove it, so you just suspect," McCausland said. "I always recommend that people never eat any fish from out of here."
Fox 4 asked the management at the Port LaBelle Marina why the pump wasn't fixed sooner, but a representative would only comment that there was nothing wrong with it.
McCausland said the pump was only fixed in the past couple of days, after a blockage was cleared from a pipe in an elbow joint.
Since Florida initiated the Clean Vessel Act in 1994, about 570 pumpouts have been installed in marinas throughout the state.
