Charlotte County residents asked to conserve water during treatment facility repairs

Charlotte County is asking people to conserve water for roughly the next 30 days as it faces a shortage of parts needed to repair water treatment facilities.

With some facilities down while awaiting these repairs, the amount of water able to be treated has gone from around 60 million gallons a day to 40 million gallons a day. The Peace River Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority says people can do their part to help by taking shorter showers, using less water on their lawns or only running the dishwasher when it’s full. The Authority says Southwest Florida still has plenty of water in the reservoir, but the shortage in repair supplies is what is ultimately causing the need for conservation

“We don’t have a shortage of resources out there,” said Mike Coates, executive director of the Peace River Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority. “We’ve got a reservoir system that is full. We’ve got 6.5 billion gallons of water in that system. Everything just takes longer to fix. And that’s part of the issue: The fix that would have taken a few days a couple of years ago now takes weeks”

The Peace River Water Treatment Facility is currently operating at 75% capacity due to rehabilitation work that started in the spring. People in DeSoto and Sarasota counties are likewise being asked to do whatever they can to use less water. The Authority maintains these are voluntary measures, not mandatory, but says that could change if not enough people do their part.

“Even those small measures and shortening outdoor, you know, outdoor water use,” Coates said. “A household could easily save, 100 or 200 gallons a day. This four-county region that we serve has 1.1 million people in it, that’s potentially an awful lot of water to save during the course of the day, if everybody just pitched in a little bit.”