Lehigh Acres water: wells, utility water, and what to treat

Lehigh Acres was platted decades ago as a grid of lots stretching far beyond where water and sewer lines were ever run. Today that means two kinds of houses on the same street: one with a utility bill from FGUA, and one with a pump, a pressure tank, and a septic tank of its own. The water is different, the problems are different, and the treatment is different. Start by figuring out which house you have.

Utility water or a well: how to tell

FGUA, the Florida Governmental Utility Authority, provides water and sewer to a portion of Lehigh Acres, generally the older, denser areas and the corridors where lines were extended. If you get a monthly water bill from FGUA, you are on utility water. If you do not, you are on a private well, and almost certainly on a septic system too. Physical clues: a pressure tank in the garage or beside the house, a well cap in the yard, and a septic lid or riser somewhere in the lawn.

What FGUA utility water is like

FGUA draws its Lehigh Acres water from aquifer wells, treats it at its own plant, disinfects it, and publishes an annual water quality report like every public utility. In its reports it names the treatment method and the disinfectant, and those two lines tell you what to expect at the tap. Utility water here is generally moderately hard and carries a disinfectant you can smell. It is safe to drink. What people treat it for is the chlorine taste, dry skin, and the scale that shortens the life of a water heater.

What Lehigh wells usually carry

Private wells in Lehigh draw from the shallow water table aquifer or the deeper Sandstone aquifer, and the same handful of problems come up again and again.

• Hydrogen sulfide. The rotten egg smell, strongest at the hot tap and first thing in the morning. It is the number one complaint on Lehigh wells.
• Iron. Orange and brown stains in sinks, toilets, and the shower, and a metallic taste. Sometimes with manganese, which stains black.
• Hardness. Usually higher than utility water, since nothing has softened it.
• Sediment. Fine sand from the well, worse after heavy pumping or a storm.
• Tannins. Tea colored water in low, wet areas with a lot of organic matter.
• Bacteria and nitrate. The ones that matter. Lehigh lots are close together and every one has a drain field, so shallow wells can pick up what a neighbor’s septic system releases, especially after flooding.

Test before you treat

Every piece of well equipment is chosen against numbers, so the first purchase is a lab test, not a tank. Ask for coliform and E. coli, nitrate, hardness, iron, manganese, hydrogen sulfide, pH, and total dissolved solids, plus tannins if the water has color. Retest once a year and after any flood, storm surge, or work on the well. A bad bacteria result is a boil and disinfect situation, not a filter shopping trip.

The treatment stack for each kind of water

On FGUA utility water, the stack is short: a sediment prefilter, a whole-home carbon filter for the disinfectant, and either a salt-free conditioner or a softener for scale. Add a reverse osmosis unit under the kitchen sink if you want the cleanest drinking water.

On a well, the stack is built from the test results, in this order: sediment first, pH correction if the water is acidic, then an oxidizing filter with air injection that turns dissolved iron and sulfur into particles it can trap and backwash away. That stage is what ends the smell and the stains. A softener comes next, now that the iron is out and cannot foul it. Carbon or a tannin filter handles lingering taste and color. Ultraviolet disinfection goes last on the whole-home line, where the water is clear enough for the light to work, if the test found bacteria. Reverse osmosis at the sink finishes it for drinking.

Not every well needs every stage. Sulfur and hardness alone is a two-tank system. Add iron and bacteria and it grows.

Softener, salt-free, and your septic tank

Nearly every well home in Lehigh is also a septic home, and that changes the softener conversation. A softener regenerates by flushing brine down the drain, and on a septic lot that brine goes into the tank. Whether it harms the tank or the drain field is debated, and it depends on how often the softener regenerates. If you would rather not find out, a salt-free conditioner protects against scale with no discharge at all, no salt, and no drain, though it does not give the slick softened feel or remove hardness. If you want a true softener, choose a demand-regenerating model that only cycles when the resin is actually spent, and set it up so the brine line is where the plumber and the septic contractor both agree it should be.

On either water, changing cartridges, adding salt, and sending a sample to the lab are homeowner jobs. Installing the equipment, tying into the main line, adding a bypass and a drain, and any work on the pump or pressure tank is licensed plumbing work, and on a well the order of the tanks is the difference between a system that works and one that fouls in a season.

If you are in Lehigh Acres, tell us whether you are on FGUA or a well and what the water is doing, and send the lab report if you have one. We will tell you what the stack looks like and where to start.