Guest opinion: City provides answers to ‘misleading’ water plant allegations
The Breeze recently printed a letter to the editor from Cape Coral resident, Mr. Sal Grosso. Mr. Grosso’s letter contained a number of statements that are not only untrue, misleading and without any merit whatsoever, they are also intentional personal attacks upon dedicated, honest and highly competent employees at all levels of our organization.
Let’s examine his allegations one by one. He claimed that “Some unknown members of city staff directed our water plant to start selling huge amounts of water to Lee County and Pine Island Water Utilities.” This is patently untrue. Those sales were authorized by official decisions of the Cape Coral City Council. This information is readily available through a public records request had he cared to know the truth.
Next is this statement, “I believe the motive for those sales which continued through 2007 was to make it appear that we were running out of water capacity and needed to expand.” All he offers to support this allegation is his “belief.” What we offer to refute this claim are well-known and documented facts. The sales to the Pine Island Water Utility came about as a result of damage to a water pipe crossing the Matlacha Bridge during Hurricane Wilma. Because of this, Pine Island was not able to supply potable water to its customer base east of the bridge. The Council authorized sales to Lee County as a result of the County’s Utility division experiencing its own problems with capacity. Both utilities approached us for assistance. City Council was well aware of this and approved of the sales. These sales were a matter of discussion at several council meetings. Once again, this information is readily available for anyone who cares about the truth.
He claims that rules say that such sales should only occur in emergencies. No such rules exist. Utility operations throughout the state are permitted to and do engage in agreements to provide potable water and sewer services to areas outside their service areas. He further questions if there was an emergency and how it could last two years. Just look at the facts. If the reasons stated above don’t qualify as emergencies in Mr. Grosso’s then it is difficult to imagine what would. As to the need to continue the sales for two years, those reasons are well known and documented as well. For example, Pine Island Water Utility was not allowed to just replace the water line across the bridge. A new solution had to be designed, engineered, clear a lengthy approval process and then constructed. The County received water from Cape Coral beginning in March of 2005 and ending in October of 2006. Pine Island began receiving water in November of 2005 and ended in February of 2007.
There is the claim that water production during this period “went from 9 million gallons per day to over 13 million gallons per day and that triggered the need to start planning to expand.” This strongly infers that the increase in usage was mostly attributable to our bulk sales to Pine Island and the County, but this does not stand up to scrutiny of the facts. The combined monthly usage for both Pine Island and the County never exceeded an average of 993,000 gallons per day and most months it was significantly lower. The average daily use per month over the two year period was just less than 617,000 gallons.
Further, it is quite clear that Mr. Grosso has no understanding of the difference between Average Daily demand and the term Maximum Day Demand. Maximum Day Demand is the documentation of any day within a reporting month when the demand exceeds 75 percent of plant capacity. The state of Florida regulations that trigger the need for first planning, then designing and constructing additional capacity hinge upon Maximum Day Demand. He references “average” daily water production numbers which do not come into play in this regulation.
Next is this statement regarding data supplied to the company Tetra Tech in order to complete a study on projected growth in potable water demand: “I examined that data and concluded it used false data intentionally designed to create a report which said we needed to more than double our capacity.” Mr. Grosso does not detail how he “concluded” this, but regardless the data simply does not support any such conclusion. Though he may feel that he is targeting upper management with his allegations, unfortunately Mr. Grosso is also impugning the character and reputation of the various mid- and lower-level employees who are responsible for gathering and documenting the data needed for the study. You can be sure that these employees are dedicated and decent people who would never sully their reputations or that of the City’s by participating in actions such as Mr. Grosso alleges.
Finally is this statement, “When we were no longer selling to those two utilities, the average production fell from over 13 million gallons per day in 2006 to less than 10 million gallons per day in 2008. The so called emergency disappeared.” Through this statement, Grosso alleges that a 3 million gallon per day difference was contrived through outside sales. Again, look to the facts and anyone can see that what is alleged is not possible. If the average daily usage in any given month of sales to the two utilities was never over 993,000, gallons and the average of total monthly sales for the 24 months was just under 617,000, then how could these claims possibly be accurate?
At first, we hesitated to respond and risk giving the impression that such angry and baseless invective deserves some level of importance. The problem is that ignore these groundless and continual attacks without some kind of response may cause readers to speculate about their validity. We want there to be no speculation or doubt on the part of our citizens.
– co-authored by City Manager Terry Stewart and Public Works Director Chuck Pavlos