Fort Myers City Leaders say project will fix two-year stint of dark-colored water

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Fort Myers City leaders told Fox 4 a solution is in progress for the community of McGregor Reserve and surrounding areas, that will fix the discolored water impacting residents since 2020.

On Friday, people like Gil Misner spoke with Fox 4 about the ongoing issues and his frustrations with what he calls a drawn-out process.

“Let me put it to you this way, if you are late one day on your water bill, they shut you off they charge you to put it back on but they can screw up your house, and it’s okay,” said Misner.

On Friday, Misner told Fox 4 the copper-colored water was flowing from the outside faucets and inside his home.

“I went in the bathroom to pee, and I said, oh I got to go to the doctor there is something wrong with me, it was like a rusty red,” said Misner.

Fox 4 started searching for answers by asking for an update from Richard Moulton, the City of Fort Myers Public Utilities Director.

“We are aware that there are some older water lines that needed to be changed out, that is being done as we speak,” said Moulton.

Waterlines up to this point have caused problems for other people like Nelson Taylor in McGregor Reserve.

“We were trying to give our newborn a bath when it started spitting brown,” said Taylor.

On Friday, Fox 4 asked Moulton why it’s taken over two years to fix the problem.

“There are a lot of things that come into play long lead-time items, Covid, there are a lot of things over the last two years that have caused it to be a longer process,” said Moulton.

While Moulton said the project, which he confirms will fix the problem, is almost complete, he could not give an exact completion date.

The Public Utilities Director also confirmed that the people living in the Mcgregor Reserve area, won’t see any sort of construction inside of their neighborhoods.