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LEE COUNTY, Ala. (WTVM) – Lee County Commissioners approved funding for diving equipment during tonight’s meeting. Sheriff Jay Jones says over seven miles of water are in the Lee County area. Currently, Lee County doesn’t have a dive team.

In previous years, when crimes involved water or when search and rescue were needed, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office had to reach out to surrounding counties.

“So we’re left kind of with a void, and we felt like it would be at this point being the fact that we do have more than eight square miles of water here in Lee County, particularly along the Chattahoochee River that’s the entire border of our eastern section of the county that way we could have a team that could help us with those particular operations,” said Sheriff Jay Jones.

Sheriff Jay Jones says some deputies are already trained to help with those operations. Our Amaya Graham spoke with Scott Cone – one of those deputies. He says this dive team equipment is exactly what the county needed.

“As of right now, if Lee County were to have to call for assistance from a dive team, it could take up to an hour before anybody were to even get here but it would probably take roughly 3 hours before they could get here with their full equipment ready to dive and three hours is a long time,” said Scott Cone.

Lee County Commissioners approved $37,545.75 for diving suits and equipment. All of the commissioners approved this bid.

“It makes me feel really good – the fact that we’re taking it to basically a new era because oftentimes you don’t think about the fact that you need a dive team because you know you have crime situations where water is involved, so that’s definitely important,” said Richard Lagrand Sr.

With the board approving these funds, Sheriff Jones says a team has already been established and will soon be ready to serve.

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