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PALMETTO BEACH — Connie Largel stands beside a pond behind her business, A & C Signs, in a blue-collar neighborhood in Palmetto Beach. Floating in the pond are plastic foam containers, 7-Eleven cups and a beer bottle. The water is covered in a foamy film, and it smells a bit.
"This is nothing," Largel says. "In the winter it gets really stinky back here."
For Largel, the pond is more than an eyesore; it's a crusade.
In 2003, she complained to the Florida Department of Transportation, which owns it, that the pond smelled and could become hazardous. She made a sign asking the DOT to clean up its mess.
Her friends called her crazy, she says, but now she feels slightly vindicated.
Largel recently collected 17 signatures from residents along N 22nd Street and sent a letter to the mayor's office. The letter calls the pond the "Swampland of the Port" and implores the mayor's office to clean it up.
"If we were in a ritzy neighborhood, this would have already been taken care of," Largel said.
But the DOT, not the city, has control over the pond.
Largel and her neighbors want the DOT to clean the trash and remove the plant life taking over the pond's banks.
Two ducks that Largel cares for can no longer reach the pond's water through the bushes, she says.
The DOT maintains that it has done all it can. The pond was formed in 2003 to hold and filter runoff from the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway.
"The vegetation is there to help absorb pollution," said DOT spokeswoman Kris Carson.
The DOT did remove some plants and maintains the area around the pond, mowing and cutting trees. But the agency will only remove growth that inhibits the flow of water through culverts at either end of the pond.
Though owned and maintained by the DOT, the pond is under the jurisdiction of the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which prohibits the removal of vegetation from stormwater runoff ponds.
Carson said the DOT will take another look at the pond to see whether anything else can be done.
Largel still hopes the DOT will do more, but has tired of calling for help.
"From what I understand, we are done," she said.
Joshua Neiderer can be reached at jneiderer@sptimes.com or 226-3374.
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