FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Patty DiPiero, Lee County Utilities
              (239) 479-8534

ANNUAL WATER QUALITY REPORT SENT TO COUNTY UTILITIES CUSTOMERS

FORT MYERS, Fla. (June 6, 2003) - Over the next few days customers of Lee County Utilities should be receiving in the mail their 2002 Water Quality Report - an analysis of the safety of their drinking water.

The report details the results of tests on drinking water produced by the county's Water Treatment Plants and whether levels of any contaminants found meet or exceed U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.

The Water Quality Report is required annually by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

WATER TREATED BY LEE COUNTY UTILITIES MET OR EXCEEDED ALL QUALITY STANDARDS for the period covered by the report - January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2002 - except for a sampling violation for Total Trihalomethanes (TTHM) for the Waterway Estates Water Treatment Plant. This was due to a sampling oversight. Testing that should have been completed by December 31, 2002 was completed on January 2, 2003 and the results of those test showed that the water quality was in compliance with the TTHM drinking water standard.

The county's Utilities Division serves 55,000 water and 39,500 sewer customers in portions of North, East and South Lee County. The county operates five wastewater-treatment plants - Fort Myers Beach, Fiesta Village, Waterway Estates, Highpoint and Pine Island - with a total of 12.5-million gallons of capacity per day, and five drinking 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 $30.3 million.