LETTER TO THE EDITOR: A request to restore the estuary
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To the Editor:
I read with fascination Tonya Bramlage’s article in the March 18, 2022 edition describing the ongoing tarpon research and the good works done by the LBCWP. I would like to call attention to a significant omission to the facts involving this drainage (before the Intracoastal Waterway) and before there were any golf courses straddling Lemon Creek and before the restrictive conduits under Placida Road, there was a wooden bridge that crossed the creek, referred to by local folks as the “Conway Bridge.” Area fishermen used to pass under the road bridge and proceed all the way up to the headwaters of Lemon Creek. They placed some poles in the water way up the creek, very likely to secure ends of stopnets, they are visible today from the bird observation dock at the east end of the creek.
This is property of the “Amberjack Preserve,” a terrific Charlotte County Park … I am searching for documentation and perhaps photos of the bridge and the creek in those years. I had conversation with the late Buck Cole of Placida, who used to go up in there to fish, he said the fishermen called it “Lil Buck.” The second edition of “Englewood, The First 100 Years” published by Newton Studios, Inc., Englewood, includes in its front and back covers a reproduction of a nautical chart (undated) that clearly depicts no ICW, but various canals that had been dug and exist today, and Lemon Creek pre-golf courses.
The entire tidal exchange that nurtured this natural estuary has been entirely blocked and cut off by the construction of Fiddler’s Green; no water passes south of the small bridge across what once was Lemon Creek, and in our driest season, fast approaching, the entire lake upland goes bone dry. Engineering work done by Divers and McCleod in December of 1985 refers to “Lemon Creek” with a line indicating mean high water line, which in my experience is a tidal reference. If the Beacon chooses to print any of this, I would hope that elders of the community that remember the Conway Bridge might speak up, this estuary should be restored. Unlike the tremendous amount of work that has been completed upland by the LBCWP, none would be required upland to restore Lemon Creek’s drainage and estuary.
Submitted by James M.S. Johnson Englewood