June 3, 2004
By PAMELA SMITH HAYFORD, phayford@news-press.com

Dozens of wells are drying up in Cape Coral — at least one is at a record low — because of a dry spring and continuing new construction that is putting a strain on the aquifers.

Every day lately, Pat Swyers walks into her back yard in southwest Cape Coral and turns on the spigot at her well just to see if water flows out.

On Wednesday morning, it didn’t.

“We’ve been watching it for months because we knew our turn was coming,” Swyers said.

Her sister’s well two houses down went dry the same day. Another neighbor’s well went dry the day before, and another before that.

It is not just Swyers’ Southwest 12th Place neighborhood.

Wells are hitting record lows throughout Southwest Florida as the region goes into its fifth week with no more than half an inch of rain.

Cape Coral and Buckingham are the hot spots, said Kurt Harclerode, a spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District.

“We have a crisis over here,” said Linda Liker, who lives near Gleason Parkway and Chiquita Boulevard in Cape Coral. She found herself without water last Thursday.

“It’s a crisis,” she said, “because you have no water to flush your toilets, you can’t wash your hands, you can’t do your dishes.”

Three wells monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey in Cape Coral show groundwater at unusually low levels, even for this time of year.

One of those wells, in the median of Gleason near Skyline, was at a record 73 feet below sea level Wednesday. The previous record low of 58 feet was set in May 2003.

“We have dozens of residents who are losing water,” city spokeswoman Connie Barron said. “It’s a concern to us for two reasons. One, this has not been an extraordinarily dry, dry season.”

The other reason is that construction of new homes shows no signs of slowing. Each new home usually means a new straw in the aquifer. City utilities won’t be in the area for at least another four or five years, Barron said.

The tap has been running dry in Buckingham, too, where water managers are investigating to see whether a new golf course community being built nearby is the cause. If it is, the builder of the Verandah — The Bonita Bay Group — would have to pay for new wells for affected residents.

Bonita Bay did cut back water use at the Verandah, Harclerode said.


WATER RESTRICTIONS

For the most part, sprinklers aren’t needed once the daily rains begin. Either way, Southwest Florida has been under year-round conservation requirements since April 2003.

• The rules allow residents to water three days per week — Odd-numbered addresses: Monday, Wednesday, Saturday; Even-numbered addresses: Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday.
• No lawn or landscape watering is allowed between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. daily (6 p.m. in Cape Coral)
• Local governments may adopt separate ordinances if they are as strict or stricter than the district rule.
• The rules do not apply to washing cars, flushing boat motors or pressure washing.


“They’re cooperating fully with us and have indicated they will do anything they have to to alleviate the problem,” he said.

Well drillers say Cape’s problem is a combination of dry weather and new homes popping up all over. The more wells in the aquifers, the more straws sucking from the communal drinking glass.

The Cape issued permits for some 5,000 new homes last year and 3,000 new wells.

Barron said the city can’t deny permits as long as they meet state guidelines.

Doug Brand, owner of H20 Systems Inc. and a 32-year veteran of digging wells in Cape Coral, said he has a solution: “Pray for rain.”

Rain actually is in the forecast the rest of the week.

Well drillers are struggling to keep up.

“It’s all we’ve been doing for the past three weeks,” said Dave Hall, vice president of Stucky Drilling Service Inc. in Cape Coral. “We’ve got every available man working.”

Hall said he has been lowering about eight pumps per day.

Normally, that request comes in only about four times per month.

Brand said he has drilled more than 600 new wells in the Cape in the past three months.

Cape city council offices have been getting calls daily from nervous residents running out of water, said Kay Arrowood-Molle, Mayor Arnold Kempe’s assistant.

The city has asked its code enforcement officers to step up citations on people violating the city’s year-round water restrictions, which are slightly stricter than the water management district’s rule.

During the weekend, the Cape issued 143 tickets, Barron said.

“You don’t want to get a citation and you want to help your neighbors — you want to help yourself,” Harclerode said. “The actions of you and your neighbors can affect your ability to draw water.”

Cape Coral residents who have had to spend hundreds of dollars for new wells aren’t just urging. They are begging.

“The aquifer is drying up out here,” Liker said.

But the folks out there do at least have a sense of humor about it all. Swyers said the neighborhood has a running joke that the dry wells are a conspiracy by the city, which is expanding utilities in the area.

“Because we’re going to be so happy when that system comes in, we’ll be more than happy to pay the $20,000,” Swyers said. “Not true. … We just all get together laughing about it.”

— Staff writer Jeff Cull contributed to this report.

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