St. Cloud addressing concerns over dirty water

Residents in St. Cloud are reporting dirty water. It has been an ongoing problem for pockets of the city and now the city and county are holding public meetings to hear concerns from the community.

ST. CLOUD, Fla. - The Sunshine State is already known for having some of the worst water in the nation. In parts of St. Cloud, residents are seeing brown and orange water, coming out of their faucets.

"I could go about five hours without cleaning my toilet and you'll already see orange on the back of my toilet," said Michelle Peters. "My neighbor she's like, 'Every night I'm trying to give my child a bath and it's all orange; I can't put my child in that.'"

The city has acknowledged that something is wrong here. Back in 2017, treatment resin discharged into the system creating this, according to officials.

"Some polishing filters at one of the water plants failed," explained Brian Wheeler, Interim Environmental Utilities Director.

Wheeler said clean water is flowing out, but the city's pipes are still a mess. They have started an expensive flushing process, called "ice pigging," on a section of the city's pipes to clean that mess out. It's showing promise, Wheeler added, but the city wants to make sure it's working before going in deeper. So it could take a while, he said.

"We have to use bottled water to feed our animals right now," said Peters.

In the meantime, Wheeler said if the water does look weird or smells weird, he recommends to not use it, but wait until it clears up. City leaders are also looking at other options for residents, such as discounts on water bills.