Water Quality Assessment of Drinking Water from Local Public Water Systems (Community/ Utilities) in Lee County Florida.

Abstract

A common question among Lee County residents has been whether the tap water is safe. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the water quality compliance of the Lee County water systems and analyze further the relationship between Disinfection Byproducts (DBPs), contaminants, and disinfection. Data on the contaminants were retrieved from 2018 to 2022 Consumer Confidence Reports and OCULUS Document Management System. Descriptive analytics, regression analysis and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test were used for hypothesis testing. Results indicated that contaminant mean difference among utilities were statistically significant. Utilities that reported contaminants above the MCL were Lake Fairways Mobile Home Park (MHP) which had TTHMs reading of 84 ppb and 81 ppb in 2020; Bonita Springs Utilities that recorded odor reading of 10 threshold odor number (TON) in 2017; Microbial MCL violation incurred at City of Cape Coral, Florida Governmental Utility Authority (FGUA) Lehigh Acres Water Treatment Plant, Lee County Utilities, City of Fort Myers Water Treatment Plant (WTP), and Town of Fort Myers Beach (FM Beach Water). Furthermore, significant correlation between HAA5 and disinfection were found at Lee County Utilities, City of Fort Myers WTP, and Lake Fairways MHP. Implications of these results for future studies and public health are discussed.