Everybody has a role to play in protecting/improving the quality of water that we discharge to the Estero River and Estero Bay, including our communities.  If each of us do our part, we can get our water quality back to where it needs to be.  There are simple practices each community can incorporate into their operation and maintenance routines that will prevent pollutants from entering and harming our waterways.

Following are some suggestions.  If you know of others please, let us know and we will add them to our list.

Community Rules – that emphasize protection

• Consider adopting Florida Friendly community wide landscaping standards. Less lawn means less fertilizers.
• Limit fertilization as much as possible. Excess nutrients end up in the ponds promoting algal blooms and reduced water quality.
• Consider community wide fertilization black out from June to September.
• Help enforce water restrictions.
• Require home owners to follow appropriate landscape maintenance standards. Appropriately maintained landscaping is more resilient.

Golf Course

• Consider limiting intense golf course maintenance to playable areas only. Allow other areas to become more natural.
• Consider nutrients in irrigation water (if irrigated with reclaimed water) when fertilizing. Reclaimed water contains nutrients which reduces your fertilization needs.  Adding more will only fertilize your ponds.
• Don’t over irrigate. More is not better.

Stormwater System

• Only rainfall goes into storm drainage.
  1. Don’t blow grass clippings into storm drainage or ponds
  2. Pressuring washing should be done without chemicals. If chemicals are used, water must be prevented from entering storm drains and pond.
• Allow shorelines to become “natural.” Don’t mow up to the water’s edge. Allow wetland plants to grow along the pond’s edge.  This helps stabilize the shoreline and clean the pond water.
• Eliminate or limit the use of weed control chemicals. Chemicals kill more than the intended targets.
• Consider implementing a water quality testing program. This will provide a snap shot of how your system is functioning and may provide insight into areas where improvements could be needed.  This Village can help your community create a monitoring program and interpret the data.  Please contact Village Public Works if you would like help creating a monitoring program.

Common Areas

• Consider replacing maintained sod areas with native landscaping. This will require less water, less fertilizer and less maintenance.
• Only fertilize when needed. Afternoon rains often move the fertilizer to stormwater ponds before the plants use it.
• Consider implementing a fertilization black out from June to September.
• Follow appropriate landscape maintenance standards. Appropriately maintained landscaping is more resilient.
  • Don’t over prune trees, especially palm trees. Green fronds should never be removed from a palm tree.  Palm trees use their fronts to store nutrients.  Removing green palm fronts rob the tree of needed nutrients.
• Replace high maintenance plants with native or Florida friendly plants, which require less water, fertilizer and maintenance.
• Don’t over irrigate. More is not better.
• Comply with water restriction requirements.

Consider not irrigating during the wet season.  Rainfall typically provides more than enough water.

Illicit Discharges

Illicit discharges are defined as anything other than stormwater and stormwater runoff into a drainage system as prohibited by the Village as outlined in Village Ordinance No. 2020-08.

Only stormwater should discharge to any drainage system. Other discharges can have chemicals and pollutant that will harm the drainage system as well and the Village’s natural water bodies.

Identifying Illicit Discharges

Illicit discharges can take many forms.  It can include a non-stormwater pipe that discharges to a drainage system or chemical/materials that are exposed to rainfall and become part of stormwater runoff.

A few specific examples of illicit discharges include:

• Construction site discharges (dirt)
• Industrial/Commercial facility discharges
• Septic system failures
• Gray water discharges (washing machine, sinks, etc.)
• Improper use of fertilizer/herbicide/pesticide
• Pressure wash water with added chemicals
• Pressure wash water used to clean up chemicals
• Any pollutant left outside that may be carried off by stormwater

It is not possible to list all potential illicit discharges, so if you think it might be an illicit discharge, let the Village of Estero know so we can help make the determination.  Illicit discharges can either be reported to the Village by using the request for action or calling 239-221-5035.

Reporting Illicit Discharges

If you see anything discharging into a swale, ditch, pipe, drainage inlet, creek, river of lake that you suspect is not coming from rainfall or stormwater runoff please report it to the Village of Estero at Public Works Request for Action or 239-221-5035 or.  We will check on it and determine if it an allowable or illicit discharge.  If it is an illicit discharge, we will work to get it stopped.