FORT MYERS, Fla. — It's no secret that some parts of Fort Myers have dealt with low water pressure and dirty water for years, but that could be changing.
Your Fort Myers community correspondent, Miyoshi Price, was able to access the city's water treatment center to show you the impact that eleven new wells will have on the water that comes into your home.
"We're currently at 62 psi, and we've been running at that since May of this year," says Jason Schiandra, City Engineer.
All eleven wells were completed over the summer. Sciandra says the additional water supply helps with preventative maintenance.
"It allows for more flushing and more operational activities are going to help us address those dirty water issues," says Sciandra.
He says between 2022 and now, the city has invested 63 million in the water well project.
He explained that water well construction takes longer because of design, pricing, drilling, and equipment deliveries. While at one of the well locations off Winkler and Challenger, he says the generator took almost two years to arrive.
Each water well is about 1500 feet apart.
"The water goes down about 700 feet, and then the water gets pumped out of there and through this pipeline here, and then gets sent to our treatment facility," says Sciandra.
He says Ward 6 was the area of concern in 2022. "We think that they've experienced the biggest improvement from this, but we know it has benefited all the residents," he says.
The city was awarded 35 million from the Department of Environmental Protection's State Revolving Fund, so residents should expect more wells with more apartments and condos going up around the city.
"Ten additional wells will be built over the next couple of years, which will allow us to not only maintain the existing capacity we have, but to expand and meet additional demands as they come up," says Sciandra.
During a Monday city council regular meeting, they voted to approve an application or a contract for a loan with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. This vote is not directly connected to the water wells project, but Sciandra says it is a part of the solution to the city's clean water issues and concerns.
"It's called the State Revolving Fund loan," says Sciandra. "And what this loan is going to allow us to build, is a deep injection well at our central wastewater facility." For this project, the loan is $55 million.
"It's going to allow us to build a well 3,000 feet into the ground to inject our treated effluent water into a very deep aquifer that won't basically impact the surface water and won't come back to be a problem in the future." says Sciandra. "The overall goal is we're trying to eliminate our surface water discharge from our wastewater facilities that currently goes to the Caloosahatchee River. So we treat the water to a high standard, and it currently goes out to the river, but ultimately, we want to eliminate that because there's still a small amount of nutrients left in that water, and we want to minimize any impact the city is having on that water body."
The goal is to eliminate that surface water discharge and make more reclaimed water available to residents.
