Discolored water problems persist for Fort Myers community

Neighbors are fed up over-paying for what they say is a worsening water problem.

People in the McGregor Reserve Community in Fort Myers are still living with brown or rust-colored tap water. Some tell us they’re now getting tired of paying the bill for the brown water.

While public works are working on a permanent fix the city offered homeowners short-term solutions such as filters. Some filters have been put into overdrive. And neighbors say it doesn’t take long for them to turn brown.

McGregor Reserve resident Tami Adamson said, ” I mean that’s why we bought here because we were like ‘oh this is the perfect house, the perfect neighborhood, the perfect neighbors to raise our family in.’”

But what Adamson didn’t see when she moved in was the far from perfect water. Adamson said she has had water issues off and on for five to six years.

She’s not alone. Some – but not every – homeowner in this neighborhood is dealing with the same brown water flowing through their pipes. The city offered to install filters free of charge.

Since the filters aren’t full-proof, Adamson decided to move.

Five months is still a long time to wait for acceptable drinking water. But the city said it hopes everyone having issues will tell them about it so it can be addressed.

Fort Myers Mayor, Kevin Anderson, said, “There is no way to totally eliminate them, we have an aging infrastructure in the city, we are working very diligently to replace and upgrade the pipes. We are about 67% through, but it’s not an easy task to take everything up and put new pipes in so it takes time.”

The Mayor says the pipes are the issue. The current problems are due to the city having to turn valves within some pipes. But the city is in the process of fixing this problem. They’re replacing the Winkler pipe bank with the hope that these issues will go away.

Click here to go to a portal where you can report water problems.