Ralph Woodring
Owner, The Bait Box
Lifetime Sanibel resident

Sometimes the water is so dark, you can't see your feet in two feet of water. It is brown, almost black. All life disappears. The shrimp die off to completely nothing, and the crabs and bait fish are gone too. Very few seagulls and pelicans remain. No fish, no birds. Even the shells are gone.

That's the picture that Ralph Woodring, a fishermen and owner of The Bait Box tackle shop, paints of the problems he sees with water quality in the Sanibel area. The grass is totally dead. There's none whatsoever. He's worried. When the area is hit for months with freshwater releases from Lake Okeechobee, will it come back? Ralph doesn't know what will happen. He's heard similar stories from the guides he employs for his fishing service.

The situation angers Ralph. He wants to get a hold of someone and shake them; but he doesn't know who to shake. The problem is complex with lots of players. He's frustrated by it all, and he's sad.

"It brings tears to my eyes every time I think of it," he says. "There's got to be a better way!"

His business has changed as a result of the water changes. He used to run a boat every night to catch shrimp to sell for bait in his tackle shop. With no shrimp in nearby waters, he has resorted to buying shrimp. That's increased his costs and impacted his profit margins. Plus, customers have heard about the incidents of red tide in the area and inquire regularly about the water quality and the fishing. Business has not been good. More overhead. Less profit. Fewer customers. It's not a pretty picture.

Ralph wants to see area residents band together to build a coalition and make people aware of what's happening to the area's waters. He'd like to see people attend the meetings of the Board of County Commissioners and other government agencies involved in the issue. He knows that some day soon it will affect us all, and he wants to stop it before it's too late.

"I don't care what walk of life you're in, you need to help," he says. "We need to let our leaders know we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!"