FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Patty DiPiero, Lee County Utilities
              (941) 479-8534

LEE COUNTY UTILITIES TEACHING WATER CONSERVATION IN SCHOOLS

FORT MYERS, Fla. (April 9, 2003) - Lee County Utilities is taking its message of water conservation into the schools - hoping to instill good habits at a young age.

Patty DiPiero and Kris Miller, both with Lee County Utilities, are presenting a Water Conservation Program to third-graders in the Utilities' service area. They already have made presentations to Villas and Bayshore elementary school and will be visiting the following schools::

• Thursday (April 10) - Tropic Isles Elementary School, 9 a.m.
• Thursday (April 17) - Franklin Park Elementary School, 11:45 a.m.
• Wednesday (April 30) - Gateway Elementary School, 7:45 a.m.
• Tuesday (May 6) - J. Colin English Elementary School, 10:45 a.m.

The presentation includes a fun, age-appropriate, PowerPoint presentation on water conservation and free pencils and rulers with water conservation reminders.

"This is just another way to teach the community's youth about water conservation - something, hopefully, they'll also take home to discuss with their parents," said DiPiero.

Some of the key points of the presentation:

• Only one percent of the earth's water is available for consumption - so we must conserve.
• A person can live a month without food, but only a few days without water.
• Conserving water can be as easy as washing your car in the grass.

The Utilities Division is urging everyone to help aid in conserving water. This time of year in Southwest Florida is the driest and about 60 percent of our water use is for lawn irrigation. Lee County also would like to remind residents that a lawn only needs one inch of water per week and should only be watered when absolutely needed.

The county's Utilities Division provides more than 141,000 residents potable water and wastewater services in certain areas of unincorporated Lee County. Its service area is about 450 square miles. 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.