About the District

Message from the Executive Director

Floridians enjoy an abundance of natural resources. Our work at the St. Johns River Water Management District involves protecting and sustaining those natural resources, particularly water.

Our daily work is focused on ensuring an adequate supply of water and protecting and improving the health of northeast and east-central Florida’s water bodies.

As Florida’s population has grown over the past several decades, water use has increased significantly. Most of us get our drinking water from underground aquifers, and that source of water is limited.

A number of strategies and new technologies will be needed to meet water supply challenges and the cornerstone must be conservation. The District takes water conservation very seriously and has taken an aggressive leadership role in promoting water conservation. For example, as part of the consumptive use permitting process, the District requires all permit holders to use water efficiently, requires utilities to implement conservation rate structures and develop programs for the use of reclaimed water, requires water audits to ensure system efficiency, and encourages local governments to establish ordinances that promote waterwise landscapes.

In addition to the permitting requirements, new landscape irrigation rules became effective across the District in March 2009. These new rules tightened already existing rules on irrigation to promote water conservation.

The District promotes water conservation through its mass media campaign, through educational programs such as The Great Water Odyssey^SM computer curricula, and through the Florida Water Star^SM program, which encourages water efficiency in household appliances, plumbing fixtures, irrigation systems and landscapes. We are now expanding that program with commercial and community development.

Even with these efforts, conservation alone will not meet the future water needs. We have identified sufficient alternative water source options that can be used in combination with fresh groundwater to meet projected demands and avoid adverse impacts on the environment. These options include using water from rivers and lakes, brackish groundwater and seawater.

Another alternative water source option is to increase our use of treated wastewater, known as reuse water or reclaimed water. Using reclaimed water in appropriate ways helps extend supplies of fresh groundwater for water supply needs and enhances efforts to clean up the state’s waterways.

Disposing treated wastewater by discharging it into Florida’s waterways has become more and more difficult to do in an environmentally sound manner. Too many nutrients running off our yards and roads and from dairy and agricultural lands have harmed our water bodies’ ability to naturally treat and cleanse the pollutants.

The District’s work is diverse and often complex, but our purpose remains the same: to ensure the sustainable use and protection of water resources for the benefit of the people of the District and the state of Florida. In all of this work, we strive to use taxpayer dollars wisely. You have our commitment on that.

This Web site is a way for you to keep informed about our work and I invite you to visit each section to further learn about us.

Sincerely,
Kirby B. Green III