Thank goodness we had some rain. It has given a temporary reprieve to Lee County families who had depended on wells that went dry at the height of the drought. Because of Lee Counties position in the river basin, we are fortunate that our water system had, as we were told, "plenty of water."
But not everyone in Lee County is on the county water system which is provided water and operated by the City of Sanford. Some folks in the county are not in areas served by the system and had to depend on wells. Their wells went dry. When they went to the county/city water system, they left with their buckets empty. It seems neither county or city government had done any planning to accommodate their needs.
It is a complicated system. To extend city water lines to an unserved area of the county, the city assesses (charges) its future customers for the cost of running the water lines to the area. Since the area is in the county, such an assessment would have to come from the county and be approved by the county commissioners. The Dispatch has learned that despite all the overage of the drought, the city and county had not worked out a procedure for extending water lines to new areas where families had their wells go dry.
So if your well went dry, and you went for help, you were up the creek because needed contingency planning wasn't done. So much for emergency preparedness.
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