County to shut off free drinking water

For more than 18 years, Leisure Lakes resident Rosie Earp has been getting her drinking water free from a county faucet, which was made available to residents after some private wells were found to be contaminated.

Starting March 1, Earp and others who use this faucet, located on the east side of the Bert J. Harris Jr. Agricultural Center, will have to go elsewhere to fill up their water jugs.

The county is shutting off the water to save money and prevent what it says is abuse of the service and vandalism.

Highlands County's Director of Facility Management David Flowers said users would leave the faucet running all weekend or spray trucks would fill up 500 gallons of water at a time.

The piped water, which the City of Sebring provides, also costs the county an average of $70 a month, he said.

"Shutting off this water is a cost-cutting measure," he said. "This is something I have been looking at for some time."

At least Earp, who is retired and on fixed income along with her husband, is not happy about it.

"Why is he cutting the public from this drinking water?" Earp wondered. "The taxpayers are the ones paying that water bill."

She maintains that discontinuing the water would affect many people, such as those who live in mobile homes, and well owners.

Her well is about 60 feet deep but there used to be a lychee nut grove on one side and a nursery operates on the other side.

Earp is afraid that pesticides may have seeped into the water table. She uses her well water for everything except drinking.

And as far as she knows, a well the county dug provides the water to the faucet and not the city of Sebring, Earp added.

"That water is public drinking water," she maintained.

Flowers said there may have been a well many years ago or the well Earp was referring to provides irrigation water, but the particular faucet carries water provided by the city of Sebring.

The free service was made available about 20 years ago when some private wells in the Sebring area were found to be contaminated by EDB, he said.

Now EDB is no longer in use and there are no drinking wells that are unsafe, he added.

"Drinking water is so readily available now," Flowers said.