FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:    Jim Lavender, Lee County Public Works, 479-8301
                Rick Diaz, Lee County Utilities, 479-8181

FORT MYERS, Fla. (January 30, 2001) – Lee County will officially bring its Utilities operations back in-house Thursday (Feb. 1) after having the contract privatized for the last five years with Severn Trent-Avatar Utility Services.

Water and sewer customers in Lee County’s franchise area should notice no changes in their service or billing. The county’s Utilities Division serves 48,500 water and 33,600 sewer customers in portions of north, east and south Lee County.

The county will operate the system at the same cost as the private vendor, with vendor contract charges simply transferring to county personnel and maintenance costs. During the last several weeks, the county has hired back about 100 employees to staff its five wastewater-treatment and five potable water-treatment plants. Most of the employees were hired from ST-AUS and are former county employees from when the operations and maintenance contract was initially privatized in June 1995. The balance are employees hired locally and from around the state for their expertise in utilities operations.

The Board of Lee County Commissioners voted in October to de-privatize utilities operations after it was shown the county could provide improved service at the same cost, and with a greater sense of ownership over the system.

"This is strictly an internal operating change and should have no immediate impact on customers," says Rick Diaz, Lee County Utilities Director. "Over time, however, the county hopes to make its utilities system a model of efficiency for the state."

The county operates five wastewater-treatment plants – Fort Myers Beach, Fiesta Village, Waterway Estates, Highpoint and Pine Island – with a total of 10-million gallons of capacity per day, and five water-treatment plants – College Parkway, Corkscrew, Green Meadows, Olga and Waterway Estates – with a combined 26-million gallons of capacity per day. The Utilities Division has an annual operating budget of about $27 million.