Lee County needs a red-algae SWAT team, Commissioner Brian Bigelow told the Fort Myers Beach Chamber of Commerce on Thursday.

That barrier island community and nearby Sanibel Island have been draped with slimy, smelly algae already this year. With tourists less than enamored with the mess, beach businesses and resorts have argued to remove the algae by whatever means.

“We need to get on this algae immediately,” said Bigelow. “This is a crisis before us. I think we need a SWAT team that can respond to it immediately.”

Bigelow, a fifth-generation Lee County resident, was elected to the county board in November, 20 years to the day after his father Charlie was voted into the same seat. He said he doesn’t buy the arguement that the algae drifts are a natural occurrence and should be left alone. He pointed to nutrient flows — particularly from Lake Okeechobee releases into the Caloosahatchee River — as the cause.

Bigelow says Lee County is the victim of the South Florida Water Management District and the Corps of Engineers, managers of the lake. He’s still arguing to sue them both, but coming up short.

Bigelow said the swing vote is Chairman Bob Janes, with he and Commissioner Ray Judah ready to sue and Commissioners Tammy Hall and Frank Mann on the other side.

“Ray and I are on one side and two are on the other side and one is in the middle,” he said. “It’s Chairman Janes, and the ball is entirely in his court.”

Janes says he’s not in the middle. He’s not voting to sue.

“I’m not going to spend $5 million on a lawsuit that’s no guarantee, and if we do win, what do we win?” he said. “We get them ordered to do something and it takes 10 years to get it dopne. We’re told it’ll take 10 years now.”

Janes, a Sanibel resident and the island city’s former mayor, said the problem with an algae SWAT team is that the county has no authority to clean beaches inside corporate limits.

Bigelow also said the recent blow-up over the future of the county landfill shows that even if the county’s doing a good job of managing growth, it’s doing a bad job of planning for it. Commissioners recently decided in a split vote to not allow a landfill expansion, which leaves them looking for solutions to handle construction and demolition waste.

Bigelow said the issue was one dealt with during his father’s tenure.

“It’s interesting that that in particular came back after all those years to be dropped in my lap,” he said.

The county knew in 1992, when commissioners promised residents they’d close the landfill, that they’d need another option, Bigelow said.

“Yet we didn’t plan for this day,” he said. “Now our backs are against the wall.”

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