Fort Myers buying water from Lee County to help alleviate water pressure issues

Lee County is selling water to the City of Fort Myers to help with water pressure issues impacting people in several communities.

The people in charge of the city’s water and public works think in five months, they will have a much better handle on the problem and they hope they won’t need to keep buying water from Lee County, but right now, there isn’t enough water coming through the pipes.

The Fort Myers Director of Public Works Richard Moulton said, “the city had some wells that weren’t operating well. We have to kind of rehabilitate them. So our supply-side had a dip in how much water we are making. And we had to reduce the distribution pressure.”

Moulton said that reduction in water pressure hit people living on the eastern side of the city hardest.

The quickest solution; buy water from Lee County.

The city’s agreed to pay nearly $173,000 a month for 45 million gallons of water.