Florida is surrounded by salt water, but the state’s worst drought in 25 years — this week’s rain aside — has been a stark reminder that the availability of fresh water threatens to be a drag on Central Florida’s long-term growth.
A 50-acre man-made wetland in the works just north of the Brevard County line is just one example of how government agencies and businesses are trying to deal with water challenges.
But the wetland also signals a milestone for Farmton’s Deering Park — among the largest future master-planned communities in Florida. The 23,000-home development is expected one day to spill over from Volusia into Brevard County, with up to 2,306 mixed-use units in the Space Coast’s future, at least on paper.
And all those homes and businesses will need reliable, affordable water.
Large new developments throughout Central Florida likely will face delays, added costs, or legal vulnerability due to water‑supply constraints long identified by the St. Johns River Water Management District. With each drought, water managers have signaled the end of ‘cheap’ water. How Deering Park and other developments play out hinges on how taxed our aquifers and the St. Johns River become.
Will recent rains, El Niño save Florida from its worst drought in 25 years?
In the past two weeks, rain eased drought over parts of coastal Brevard and surrounding counties, according to the National Weather Service. But there’s been no significant change in long-term drought across the rest of East Central Florida.
So despite this week’s anticipated heavy rains, it won’t likely be enough to significantly reduce long-term drought in Brevard. As of May 28, about three-quarters of the county remains in moderate drought and 27% is in severe drought, according to the National Weather Service.
It all started with the climate pattern called La Niña, which helped produce a warm, dry winter and spring that set the stage for this year’s extreme Florida drought. The strong El Niño that’s expected soon could temper the drought, to a degree. Timing will be everything, in terms of fire and other climate risks. But it won’t solve Florida’s longer-term water supply issues.
And the El Niño wetter pattern is not quite here yet, nor guaranteed.
What’s El Niño and La Niña?
La Niña is a cooler-than-usual pulse of water near the equator in the Pacific Ocean — the flip side of El Niño, which is warmer-than-usual water in the same region. Both patterns, which happen every several years, alter global climate patterns.
El Niño often results in stronger fall and winter storms in Florida. It raises the odds of floods, droughts, cyclones, tornadoes and other extreme global weather. On the upside, it also can douse summertime fire risk in Florida and create winds that shear the tops of tropical cyclones apart before they can strengthen to hurricanes. But El Niño’s rainy relief to fire season often arrives too little too late.
Brevard issued a countywide burn ban May 8 due to dry conditions and wildfire risk. And this week, the Florida Forest Service warned that Brevard and several surrounding counties are at “moderate fire potential.”
Worst drought in 25 years rekindles water supply concerns
This drought, expected to get worse, echoes the dry times of the early 2000s, when SJRWMD officials publicly debated suspending or sharply limiting new water‑use permits and imposed heightened scrutiny on new and expanded consumptive use applications. Add to that climate change predictions that warn of similar, more frequent and longer-lasting droughts.
Florida’s drought is so bad, now NASA can ‘see’ the groundwater depletion from space. From 300 miles up, the agency’s duo GRACE‑FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow‑On) satellites sensed just how dry. When large amounts of water build up in one region, Earth’s gravitational pull in that area grows slightly stronger. Conversely, during a drought Earth’s gravity weakens a bit. The satellites sense those gravitational changes.
‘Recharging’ Florida’s aquifers with reclaimed water
Edgewater Wetland Park is an example of using reclaimed wastewater to help offset excess groundwater withdrawals expected to accelerate in north Brevard and southern Volusia counties, as aerospace expansion drives most new demand.
The Edgewater Wetland Park will redirect up to 3 million gallons per day of excess reclaimed water that would otherwise wind up in the Indian River Lagoon to fuel harmful algal blooms that kill fish, manatees and some of the reasons tourists and new residents come here. Native plants in the wetlands will draw harmful nutrients from the water before it seeps into the aquifer.
Brevard has been looking to similar water reclamation solutions, as its 660,000 population is projected to add up to 130,000 residents by 2040 and up to 165,000 by 2050, according to University of Florida projections. Each newcomer and tourist adds to the challenge of keeping water ample, affordable and clean.
But water management hasn’t kept pace with growth in Brevard or Volusia, conservationists say. Lawn irrigation alone is not a reliable sink for all reclaimed water, they say, even for mega developments like Farmton’s. That’s why Edgewater Wetland Park is being built.
Other regional water supply strategies include limits on consumptive use permits and more scrutiny of how and where water is withdrawn from the St. Johns River.
Stricter water quality rules will balloon Brevard’s water/sewer costs
Brevard’s utility director warned in March that the county’s water and sewer rates will soar in coming years, as the county struggles to meet new water quality standards, adding to growing concerns about Florida’s affordability.
Brevard needs $800 million in water/sewer upgrades in the next several years, including $110 million to expand the Mims Water Treatment Plant and $80 million for a new advanced wastewater treatment plant in Port St. John. The need is driven, in part, by years of violations of federal and state sewer treatment rules that led to state consent orders, as well as new rules regarding emerging contaminants like PFAS.
To fund the required utilities projects, sewer connection fees could double to about $4,800, Brevard Utilities Director Ed Fontanin warned county commissioners in March. For drinking water, connection fees would increase from about $1,700 to $5,000 per Equivalent Residential Connection (a standard unit of measurement for a single-family home).
But the Trump Administration has proposed to partially rescind and/or delay some of the Biden-era PFAS rules or extend the deadlines utilities have for meeting them from 2029 to 2031.
Central Florida faces almost 100 million gallon shortfall by 2045
The reason water managers have been warning for a quarter century that Central Florida water customers face expensive days of reckoning is because cheap, easy to access groundwater is growing scarce due to population growth and climate change.
Now, fresh groundwater availability in the region is capped at 760 million gallons per day, according to regional water planners.
By 2045, groundwater demand is expected to hit 856 million daily gallons. That creates a regional shortfall of about 96 million gallons per day, if no alternative water projects are built, SJRWMD warns. That’s essentially the same shortfall district officials in 2000 warned would happen by 2020. So as more people moved here, the supply warning remained the same, despite shifts away from groundwater use and other conservation efforts.
Guarding Brevard wells from too much salt
If local utilities pull too much groundwater, deeper, saltier water intrudes into wells, making water more expensive to treat and SJRWMD groundwater-use permits tougher to get. In general, treating salty groundwater and/or the St. Johns River is about twice as expensive as treating fresh sources of groundwater, district studies show, costs that pass down to customers.
An ongoing SJRWMD update of water supply models that focuses on salt water intrusion to Brevard’s ground water could further tighten development constraints, especially in coastal North Brevard and areas close to the lagoon.
Taylor Creek to the rescue?
More than half of Central Florida’s daily 100 million gallon fresh groundwater supply deficit is expected to be filled by Taylor Creek Reservoir, an outcropping of the St. Johns River about three miles south of Cocoa’s Claude H. Dyal Water Treatment Plant in eastern Orange and Osceola counties. The reservoir already provides about a third of Cocoa’s supply and is dirtier and therefore more expensive to treat than other sources.
Built in the 1960s as part of a federal flood-control effort, the reservoir now provides drinking water to communities in Brevard County, and irrigation water for farming.
Late last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced $15 million in state grants for the Taylor Creek Reservoir Improvements Project and $10 million to support the new Water First North Florida project. The two grants aim to “strengthen water-supply reliability and support long-term growth across central and northeast Florida,” district officials said.
When completed in the next several years, the overall project could eventually deliver up to 54 million gallons per day of additional potable water, enough for 180,000 more homes.
What’s next with Farmton?
So far, Deering Park is being built in Volusia County.
The 2,306 homes mentioned in Brevard’s comprehensive plan have yet to be permitted, platted, or actively moving toward construction. But Farmton has been under the single ownership of Chicago-based Miami Corporation for more than 80 years and under development pressure because of its access to major Interstate-95 interchanges.
The Farmton plan includes thousands of acres of wetlands set aside in permanent conservation easements to guard water supply and quality. But some conservationists fear the future development pressure will be too much for that to work.
The Edgewater Wetland Park, a former timber farm, is a piece of that, but more such projects are needed.
SJRWMD board members echoed that sentiment on Jan. 13, just before approving a milestone permit for Ormond Beach to increase its groundwater use from 8.5 million to 10 million daily gallons through 2036, to meet a projected 37% increase in population.
But the city’s expansion of its reclaimed water system will ease future groundwater use on lawns, leaving more for taps. Residents and businesses now use about 77% of the city’s reclaimed water. The rest is discharged into the Halifax River. The city plans to build a surface/reclaimed water storage reservoir by 2030 to prevent that wasted water and excess nutrients that spur toxic algal blooms.
“There’s no way we can meet the water demand needs in this state without going to reclaimed water,” SJRWMD board member Chris Peterson said just before the Jan. 13 permit approval. “And looking for innovative technologies along those lines, and cleaning it up a little more so there’s maybe not as much nutrient in it.”
Contact Waymer at 321-242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Despite recent rain, long-term water supply needs threaten Brevard growth
Reporting by Jim Waymer, Florida Today / Florida Today
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jim Waymer, Florida Today | USA TODAY Network
