Utilities director: Cape drinking water OK despite contaminants

CAPE CORAL, Fla. Jonathan Klenk was shocked by what showed up in his inbox Wednesday.

The email from the city’s utilities billing service directed Klenk to a nine-page annual tap water quality report explaining the city detected more than a dozen contaminants in the water supply.

“I am very concerned when I hear ‘contaminants,'” Jonathan’s wife, Vicky Klenk, said.

But the water is safe, said Cape Coral Utilities Director Jeff Pearson said.

“Even salt can be considered a contaminant,” he said.

A message from Pearson appears atop the report, which details a long list of contaminants, including E. coli. But none of those contaminants meet the Maximum Contaminant Level — the highest amount of a contaminant allowed in the water, according to the report.

The district had one positive E. coli test during routine monthly sampling, but since the bacteria didn’t show up in a repeat sample, the maximum contaminant level was not met, the report states.

Water naturally picks up some contaminants like the fluoride and sodium listed in the report, Pearson said.

“All water has certain constituents in it, nothing is pure, pure,” Pearson said.

Water has been a headline-making subject in the city this year. A severe drought forced a once-weekly lawn-watering restriction that has since been lifted, but the city’s drinking water comes from a different source than its irrigation supply.

Enough tap water exists to last another 15-20 years, the city estimates.