According to the last U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the Lee County portion of Gasparilla Island has 1,130 homestead-exempt people living here, which is a 41.8 percent decrease since 2020. The same area recorded 1,720 people in 2010, 1,500 in 2000 and 777 in 1990. If you go back to the 1980 figures above, that means 1980 was the last year for an increase in population that the Lee County portion of the island has had.

Many people think shells are like rocks, but in fact a shell is created by an animal called a mollusk. As the mollusk grows, so does the shell. Mollusks can be herbivores, carnivores or omnivores, but all need clean water habitats to survive. Shells mean many different things to many different people. Some people collect shells for crafts, some search for very specific shells for a collection, while others simply walk the beaches to observe and hear the sound of the shells amid their feet. 

If you read last week’s edition, you will remember that we wrote a story with information garnered primarily from someone who was claiming that the Florida Public Service Commission had denied a need for Little Gasparilla residents (and other barrier island residents) to find a different way to get rid of their sewage and wastewater. You read that Charlotte County Commissioners who had been 100 percent for the plan to find a solution were puzzled when the barrier islands were denied this option by the PSC. You also read that there were numerous septic systems at island homes that were a hazard, as they were entirely submerged during certain high tides … and some that were completely submerged at almost every high tide.

“We saw some fluctuations in the data while we were in the field, but we cannot say with any certainty what those might be until we process the data,” Kangas said. “I don’t know any place we would scan and not see fluctuations, so this doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything unusual underground. Even if we do see anomalies that might indicate something is underground, we can never say with 100 percent certainty what it is with just the GPR data, it would need to be ground truthed.”

The cost of living in a very desirable area just caught up with a lot of people in Lee County, and whether or not you have a homestead exemption, it still feels like a pretty good bite out of anyone’s budget.
For some people, it was an almost 20 percent bite this year.

Adult manatees are typically 9- to 10-feet long from snout to tail and weigh around 1,000 pounds. Manatees have two forelimb flippers that they use for steering movements and to hold vegetation while eating. A large, round, flattened paddle-shaped tail is used for swimming. They are quite agile, and able to swim upside down, roll or move vertically in the water. They frequent back bay estuaries and shallow coastal zones and spend up to eight hours a day grazing on seagrasses. This includes the back bay waters of Cayo Costa and Gasparilla Islands as well as our beaches, where in the summertime, mating herds have been observed.