Local & State Headlines

Lee to make water system improvements

• Sales tax revenues pay for a project to connect two Lee County water systems.

Susan McCord

LEESBURG — Lee County broke ground Wednesday on a $1.25 million water improvement project, a massive, 5-mile pipe to join the eastern Redbone water system with a larger system in the southwest part of the county.

“The project will provide a larger resource of water for the fastest-growing residential and commercial sector of the county,” county administrator Alan Ours said at a Wednesday news conference, where members of Lee’s board of commissioners and utilities authority tossed ceremonial shovelfuls of dirt.

Connecting the two systems creates a single, larger, 1.7 million-gallon system that will more adequately meet the needs of Lee’s 5,000 water customers, with the “second benefit” of stimulating additional commercial and residential development along Forrester Parkway and Lovers Lane Road, Ours said.

The connector runs along Forrester Parkway from Philema Road to U.S. Highway 19 and is expected to be complete in February, he said.

Project engineer Carl Hofstadter of Hofstadter and Associates said the 26,000-foot connector joins the eastside Redbone system with a southwestern system that is four times its size.

The project will benefit from a Redbone 1,000-gallon-per-minute well that is the county’s strongest, he said.

The project, as marked on a roadside sign installed Wednesday, is funded entirely with special-purpose local-option sales tax money.

Lee Commission Chairman and Utility Authority member Morris Leverette thanked voters for approving the 1 percent tax that funded the project.

Commissioner Wally Roberts, who represents the Redbone District, said the project will likely improve fire protection ratings and provide a more reliable source of water.

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