Letter: Refilling the aquifer with wastewater is a problem, not a solution
Letter to the editor
Until the 1970s, Jacksonville pumped sewage straight into the St. Johns River and allowed dumping industrial waste there as well. The mayor elected in 1967, local advocates, and the Clean Water Act of 1972 helped to at least send wastewater to treatment plants before releasing it to the river. That practice, too, is restricted by state law now, but raising springwater levels through recharging projects is another goal in state law that opens a path to reusing wastewater, a risky and irreversible choice.
Jacksonville, the largest city, water consumer, and wastewater producer in northern Florida, is again looking to offload its wastewater, this time far to the west, in rural springs country.
Local residents and governments and the 12-county regional planning council that includes Alachua County say no:
“It’s your baby, not ours.”
“It’s just a horribly bad idea. We don’t need their toxic water.”
“I did my master’s research on wastewater treatment of industrial waste, and Jacksonville wastewater is full of industrial waste.”
Water First North Florida is a plan to pipe 40 million gallons a day of treated wastewater from Jacksonville to an area with sparse population to “replenish the Floridan Aquifer.”
Besides disposing of wastewater, some observers say plans to send it to springs and groundwater are meant to avoid setting limits on water pumping. Proponents of the plan reject alternatives such as desalination as too expensive, although it’s in use in Florida as a source, given the state’s long coastline. In addition to development, water bottling, and countless other water uses, Florida has about 126 AI data centers, those notorious water and energy hogs, and the state’s first hyperscale data center was just approved in little Fort Meade, against overwhelming public opposition and new safeguards passed this legislative session.
Rainfall levels rise and fall, while overpumping is causing the decline in the aquifer on which Florida and its 700+ springs depend. “No other explanation comes close,” the Florida Springs Institute says.
The St. Johns River and Suwannee River Water Management Districts and JEA, Jacksonville’s utility company, are leading the JEA wastewater disposal plan, with publicly funded promotional resources and support from entities including GRU. Yet GRU’s website says in big bold letters, “We Have One of the Purest Water Supplies in the Nation,” and it details the lengths it goes to in keeping it pure.
On the other hand are longtime defenders of the environment, along with local residents and officials who are advocating hard, in meetings and on social media, against the wastewater-to-aquifer plan. The odds look slim, but then so did they around the time of the first Earth Day, in 1970.
Ironically, environmental concerns just led to a new state law to relieve North Florida from its status as a “longtime dumping grounds of South Florida’s sewage sludge.” Jax could return the favor by dealing with its own wastewater locally, and the state should pursue more responsible water protection laws and incentives.
Tana Silva, Gainesville
Sources include Aquiferious, WWALS, and these news stories and web pages, among others:
- https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/columns/mark-woods/2022/10/16/clean-water-act-passed-50-years-ago-helped-clean-up-st-johns-river/10478054002
- https://www.columbiacountyobserver.com/master_files/Florida_News_2026/20260328-water-first-north-florida-12-counties-give-the-wfnf-plan-a-unanimous-thumbs-down.html
- https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/403.064
- https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/373.805
- https://wwals.net/2026/04/17/fl-statutes-give-jea-until-2032-or-2039-or-2044-to-divert-its-wastewater-joe-squitieri-scrp-2026-04-02/
- https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2026-04-15/florida-joins-growing-national-push-to-stop-the-spread-of-sewage-sludge
- https://www.wusf.org/environment/2026-04-15/fort-meade-ai-data-center-project-hits-roadblock-over-new-water-rules
- https://floridaspringsinstitute.org/stop-subsidizing-those-who-harm-springs-through-pumping-pollution/
The opinions expressed by letter or opinion writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AlachuaChronicle.com. Assertions of facts in letters are similarly the responsibility of the author. Letters may be submitted to info@alachuachronicle.com and are published at the discretion of the editor.
To clarify, JEA and other Florida utilities have deadlines in the 2030s to end most wastewater releases to surface waters like the St. Johns and instead reuse what they can as graywater for irrigation and other purposes — including sending it to springs, which seems to defeat the original reason of getting it out of natural waters.
This is driven by growth and depletion of the aquifer. Florida policy via Water Management District, at one time, did not allow inter district water transfers. Drinking or wastewater.
Duval County has hundreds of acres in northern part of their county pump it there and dump it out. Makes no sense to pump it 75 miles and dump it on land at refurbishes Our water system.
I thought DeSantis ended data centers, or was that after the ones were already built to take up water? If you want to save on data center demand, everybody should use newer Apple devices, they often use chips that calculate on the actual devices (instead of always going to a data center and back for answers).
Anyway, maybe Jax can pump to the Okefenokee Swamp in Ga., the original source of spring waters in N. Fla? By the time it’d reach the springs it should further filter itself naturally.
Whether you know it or not when they filter and reduce your solid waste down to 2-4% that water goes down a creek somewhere or into a small posd which then filters downstream or through the earth to our aquifer. With GRU it wouldn’t be hard to find out with a little research. The Sludge used to be injected into crop fields used for feeder crops, no idea if they still do that. This idea of what JEA wants to do to a different county and area is just unfathomable. They should buy old oil tankers and dump it in the ocean. No NCFL county wants your crap.
Excellent alerting us to this problem. Unfortunately DeSantis keeps encouraging more people to move to Florida which will exacerbate the problem.
“The solution to pollution is dilution”…