News-Press from Fort Myers, Florida • Page 15

1 r- State lawmakers mourn death of colleague3B Deaths4B Q) NEWS-PRESS TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1986 TP Tl fl ngineering firm dumps trash-burning project By TOM BUTLER News-Press Staff Writer problems arranging a $300,000 contract with Lee County prompted CH2M Hill's decision to throw in the towel. "That makes me so sick," Commissioner' Bill Fussell said. "That's six months of work down the drain." Finding a long-range solution to Lee County's 900 tons of garbage per day has been one of Fussell's biggest concerns during his 3 2 years in office. Commissioner Roland Eastwood said he was surprised that CH2M Hill left the county project, and said he was concerned because he also wants to see the project get moving. Commissioner Mary Ann Wallace echoed his concern, saying the county is losing one of the best consulting-engineer firms available.

The project would include separate landfills for construction debris, a plant to process sewer sludge into organic compost, and a possible "resource recovery" plant to burn garbage for electricity. The complex would probably be built north of the existing Gulf Coast Landfill on Immokalee Road. Ghiotto said one reason CH2M Hill pulled out of the project is that Lee County still hasn't made the final decision to build a resource recovery plant. The plant, modeled after one in St. Petersburg, would burn about 1,000 tons of garbage per day.

Commissioner Donald Slisher agreed that resource recovery is not a sure thing, and said the county could get by at lower cost by extending the height and size of the garbage mound at the 300-acre Gulf Coast Landfill. "There's just not three votes on the board for resource recovery," Slisher said. Fussell and Commission Chairman Porter Goss have supported the idea, but Eastwood, Slisher and Wallace say the county shouldn't rush into a $135 million resource-recovery project. Bob Wright, the area manager for CH2M Hill, said liability problems were another sticking point in the contract negotiations. Wright said CH2M Hill couldn't get liability coverage to do the engineering on a solid-waste site because insurance companies, lump solid waste with hazardous waste.

Wright said the employee-owned company wanted to be included in the county's liability coverage for protection against third-party suits. "Let's say something went wrong at the landfill because there was a leachate leak that contaminated the ground," Wright said. "We could be sued just because we were working on it at the time." See TRASH, page 2B Lee County will have to step back one square and wait a turn after the engineering firm CH2M Hill pulled out of the county's solid-waste project. The nationwide firm was supposed to help pick sites around the county and do some of the engineering for a complex that would include specialized landfills and a possible trash-burning power plant. But CH2M Hill vice president Robert Ghiotto said the county's indecision and the company's Vacant lot fills lonely lives of men without jobs, homes SAP By TOM SCHRODER News-Press Staff Writer 'Av Vt 3 in Wl 5 it the Safety Council of Southwest Florida, on Evans Avenue.

But Darrell Evers, assistant council manager, said he did not think the council owned the land. He said the council's director was out of town. The lot is dirty, and its gray sand is full of beer bottles and other garbage. Against one tree is a pile of wine and beer bottles. Ajala and about 15 other Puerto Ricans come to the lot daily.

They spend hours talking and drinking and doing nothing. Many have their Social Security checks delivered to the Dr. Ella Piper Center, where they eat lunch each day. Ajala has been coming to the lot for 10 years. "I come here every day," he said.

"I talk and see my friends. I talk about everything in the world." He goes to the lot at about 9 a.m. each day and leaves each night at 7:30. He goes home to his boarding house and sleeps. In the morning he wakes up and goes back to the lot.

"They all drink," Bill Singletary said about the men who use the lot. Singletary owns a small grocery store across from the lot. Inside, there is a shelf with bottles of colorful, cheap wines. "They're easy going," Singletary said about the men. "I haven't had much trouble out of them.

Even when they drink." Singletary said some of the men drink until they collapse. The men swear they don't drink. Louie Lopez sat on a milk box in the lot clutching a Bible. He is 44 and has been in the United States since he was 17. There are tattoos of crosses and chalices on his arms.

Lopez has no home and said he sleeps under people's houses at night. During the day, he walks the streets with his Bible. There is a littered, vacant lot in Dunbar that is Placido Ajala's life. There are trees overhead to keep away the sun and the rain. There is a milk box and the remains of an electric space heater for him to sit on.

And there are his friends from the old country to talk to. Ajala is 62 years old and came to the United States from Puerto Rico in 1953. He knows little English. Ajala will write his name for you in large, child-like letters on a piece of litter from the ground. And he will talk of his old life in Puerto Rico.

"There was work in Puerto Rico, but they did not pay too much," Ajala said through a friend. His voice is raspy and loud. He was a field worker in Puerto Rico and has been a field worker in the United States. Ajala's entire family is in Puerto Rico. Ajala has not worked for years because of a knee injury.

He rolled up his dirty tan pants to show a distorted, swollen knee. When he worked, most of his time was spent in sugar cane fields. "I got sugar in my blood," he said. Now Ajala comes to this lot each day. He sits and watches the people pass by on the street.

Those who look through the trees into the lot can see Ajala sitting on his milk box, his back as straight as if he were on a high-backed chair. They can hear loud bursts of Spanish, occasional laughter and occasional cursing. The lot is across from the Dr. Ella Piper Center on Evans Avenue. It is a triangle formed by Evans Avenue and Park Avenue.

Fort Myers city records show that the lot is owned by -4. JOE BURBANKNews-Press Placido Ajala (left) and unidentified man sit recently at the vacant Dunbar lot where Puerto Ricans meet regularly for conversation. U.S. Army. The first thing you notice about him is his bright, alert eyes.

He smiles all the time and waves his arms around in the air as he talks. He too has worked the fields and said he spends his time walking around Fort Myers. But the lot is his anchor to reality. "I don't like to stay a long he said. "But I sit here and have my friends." the lot.

In the evenings, those with daytime jobs stop by to say hello to their friends. Both Singletary and Hunter said some of the people who stop by to visit with the regulars at the lot take their Social Security money. They said the visitors promise to keep it safe and never return it. Socorro Lopez is 65 and came to the United States in 1941 to join the day," said Klyde Hunter, assistant director of the Dr. Ella Piper Center about the lot.

Hunter said she would like to see benches and tables for the men at the lot. She said they seldom associate with others when they come to eat lunch. "Mostly they stay to themselves," she said. "They're very clannish." Hunter said that by nightfall there can be as many as 30 people at But Lopez spends much of his time at the lot. He is nervous talking to an outsider.

"I like talking to my people. My friends," he said. "I don't like to be by myself all the time." He said he is happy when he is at the lot. Lopez would like t6 go back to Puerto Rico some day, but has no money. "All the time I think of my family," he said.

"That's their home during the DER officials: Sewage effluent is safe way to greener grass ByROSLYNAVERILL News-Press Environmental Writer have," said Phil Edwards, district manager at the state Department of Environmental Regulation. "California has been doing it for years." Edwards said Southwest Florida's swelling population demands more drinking water each year and officials worry that the region's underground supplies could one day dip too low and allow contamination by salt water. courage the use of sewage effluent for lawn watering, although they don't require it, and they believe there is no health risk. Jay Thabaraj, an environmental engineer at the DER in Tallahassee, said sewage jeffluent is disinfected to remove bacteria, although it doesn't meet the quality of drinking water. He said there is no cause for alarm if someone accidentally swallows some effluent or gets soaked by the sprinklers.

ered safe. I wouldn't expect any adverse reactions," Thabaraj said. He said he knows of no reported sickness that has been linked to the use of sewage effluent for irrigation. Local DER engineer Vince Mele said, "It's no worse than if you drank pond water, but it wasn't intended for you to drink it." Golf course caretakers prefer sewage effluent to drinking water for irrigation because there are more nutrients in effluent to See EFFLUENT, page2B detect a sewage smell from the sprinklers, Cooper said he hasn't received any complaints. State environmental officials said a growing number of golf courses and residential communities in Southwest Florida are watering their lawns with sewage effluent to save underground supplies of drinking water.

"We don't have a vast abundance of water and this is a way to reuse the water we do The sprinklers at Myerlee Country Club south of Fort Myers spray sewage effluent on the golf course to save 150,000 gallons of drinking water each day. "The grass is beautiful. It's as nice a golf course as any around here," club President Paul Cooper said. Although some people may Environmental officials said they en- "It's treated to the point that it's consid Koreshan history crumbles from state's neglect Model home approval mistake, Cape says By CAROL PUGH News-Press Bureau By WILLIAM SABO News-Press Staff Writer homes. Shapiro said the homes were approved by the council in 1982.

He didn't realize they were later disallowed by a later council. The OK to build the homes came from Shapiro and the city's planning department and bypassed the council. Richard Roosa, the attorney representing Avatar, said, "The city's position is that they erroneously issued building permits. Our position is that they issued valid building permits." The electrical work on the homes was done by Mayor Joe Mazurkie-wicz and the homes were built by Roger Campagnolo, a member of the See MISTAKE, page 2B CAPE CORAL City officials are admitting a mistake that a local developer says isn't a mistake at all. The city says there are three outlaw model-type homes on Cape Coral Parkway.

Avatar Properties, the owner of the homes, says the homes are perfectly legal. The twist is that the city says it made a mistake by allowing the homes to be built while Avatar Properties says the city did the right thing. "I blew it," City Manager Ellis Shapiro told the City Council several weeks ago about approving the ESTERO Enter the crumbling world of the Koreshan State Historic Site. The downstairs of one building, called the Planetary Court, is a showcase of original, solid-wood furniture, lead-glass windows and original rugs and paintings from the sect's "Golden Years" of 1904 until 1 907. But the visitor who goes up the solid mahogany stairs is greeted by gaping holes in the walls where plaster has fallen in.

There are brown stains where the roof leaks. The wood buildings on the historic site south of Fort Myers along U.S. 41 are either the showcase of the early settlement of the Koreshan Unity religious sect or the crumbling remains of an extinct sect. A non-profit corporation set up to preserve the Koreshan history, Koreshan Unity wants to fix that deterioration before the buildings crumble. Jo Bigelow, president of the corporation, has taken her pleas to the state Legislature, but it isn't listening, she claims.

When the Koreshan Unity donated 305 acres along the Estero River to the state in 1961, Bigelow said the state would restore the Founder's House and repair the roof of Planetary Court. But state officials haven't done that, Bigelow said. "They have not put any substantial money into the grounds other than in the Art Hall." When the state acquired the property, the Art Hall was leaning 15 degrees to the south and about to fall down, said Capt. Steve Banton, superintendent of the state park. Now the Art Hall has some of the original instruments used by the members of the sect and the model of what the Koreshans believed in that we live inside the earth.

Bigelow's hopes are that the historic site can be restored to the way it was during the "Golden Years" of 1904 until 1907. In the meantime, she just wants to keep the buildings from crumbling down. See KORESHAN, page2B Two die in holiday wrecks on Southwest Florida roads Rite Auto store. He was dead at the scene. The driver of the car, Catherine Hurst, also of Cape Coral, was taken to Cape Coral Hospital, where she was treated and released.

Florida Highway Patrol officials said Monday's accident on County Road 721 in Glades County happened when Jimmie Leland Lightsey of Okeechobee drove off the right side of the road 24 miles north of Moore Haven at 9:45 a.m. Lightsey's 1979 Ford pickup truck, which was heading north at See HOLIDAY, page 2B Two men died in automobile wrecks over the Memorial Day weekend in Southwest Florida, officials said. A Cape Coral man died Sunday night when his truck crossed the yellow line of Pondella Road and rammed an oncoming car and an Okeechobee man died Monday when his truck crashed into a canal in Glades County. Cape Coral police said Francis Bailey, who lived at 3509 S.E. 15th Place, was driving a pickup truck when he crossed the yellow line near Hibiscus Boulevard, in front of a Buy- I CAROL PUGHNews-Press The house of Cyrus Teed, founder of the extinct Koreshan sect, stands at Koreshan State Historic Site in Estero.

Funding is needed to help keep the site's buildings from deteriorating, the site's caretakers say..