Septic & well services in Clay County

Working in Clay County

Four places in Clay County are incorporated. The U.S. Census Bureau names them in its 2020 place-by-county file. They are Green Cove Springs city, Keystone Heights city, Orange Park town and Penney Farms town. Two of them are towns, not cities: Orange Park and Penney Farms. The same file names six census-designated places. They are Asbury Lake, Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace, Fleming Island, Lakeside, Middleburg and Oakleaf Plantation. All six are unincorporated communities. Other named spots around the county are not Census places. They are not on this list.

Clay County sits inside the St. Johns River Water Management District. So a homeowner might expect to file a well permit there. That is not where it goes. Clay is named on the District’s delegated list. Behind that list are 16 water well permitting delegation agreements. The District holds them with local health departments. It holds one further agreement with the City of Jacksonville. Together they cover wells located in the St. Johns District and not permitted by the District. So a Clay County application goes to the Florida Department of Health in Clay County. The District’s own page sends applicants there for fee questions too. It tells them to check with the county health department about permit fees for a well permitted by one of its delegated authorities.

Some wells stay with the District, and anyone planning one of them must contact the District for a permit. The District keeps four kinds of well itself. Size accounts for two. One is any well six inches or greater in outside diameter at land surface. The other is gang wells whose total nominal casing sizes equal six inches or more, where the purpose is to obtain water other than for dewatering. A gang well is two or more water wells coupled together with a common header or manifold. Geothermal accounts for another kind: all open-loop geothermal wells six inches or greater in outside diameter at land surface, plus all closed-loop geothermal wells. The remaining kind is wells in a delineated area, in counties that do not regulate them. The District names those counties as Duval, Lake, Orange, Putnam, St. Johns and Volusia. Clay is not one of them.

Septic permits come from that same county health department. DEP took charge of enforcing Florida’s laws and rules for onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems on July 1, 2021. Later it began issuing the permits itself in some places. That started on January 2, 2025, in 16 Northwest Florida counties. DEP’s permitting FAQ adds Marion County, from July 1, 2025. Clay is on neither list. DEP says the remaining 50 counties will transition depending on legislative approval. Until then, the work here stays local. The health department puts it plainly: outside those 16 counties, your local county health department still handles septic permitting and inspections. DEP’s county table says the same thing in its own way. It lists Clay among the counties where the Environmental Public Health Program of the local county health department issues the permit. The standards sit in section 381.0065, Florida Statutes. They also sit in Chapter 62-6, F.A.C., titled “Standards for Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems.”

USGS mapped the groundwater under Clay County in 1977. The report is Water-Resources Investigations Report 77-87. It found groundwater in three settings. Those are a water-table aquifer, secondary artesian aquifers, and the Floridan aquifer. Large withdrawals from the Floridan began in the 1940s. The report singles out nearby metropolitan Jacksonville. Those withdrawals caused the potentiometric surface to decline. The report put the decline at up to 30 feet in the county’s northeast corner. In the western part it was less than 5 feet. At Orange Park the rate ran about 0.7 of a foot per year in the years before the report. Those are 1977 figures for the county, not a current water level and not a reading from any one property.

Two more findings sit in the same 1977 report. Groundwater in the county was generally of good chemical quality and suitable for most uses. The other finding is about surface water. Excessive color, iron concentration, hardness and pH often made the water in Black Creek objectionable for many uses. That describes a stream in the 1977 study. It does not describe a household well.

The Florida Department of Health also maps how each parcel handles wastewater. Its Florida Water Management Inventory map for Clay County is dated July 14, 2022. The counts below are of built parcels. Known sewer: 46,153 parcels, or 58.1%. Likely sewer: 2,258 parcels, or 2.8%. Known septic: 8,604 parcels, or 10.8%. Likely septic: 12,662 parcels, or 15.9%. Another 9,714 parcels, or 12.2%, have no data. Five have conflicting data. A further 13,737 parcels are recorded as not applicable. Known and likely are separate categories on that map. It does not add them together. With 12.2% of parcels carrying no data, the map does not settle what share of the county is on septic.

The drinking-water map carries the same date and works the same way. Known public water: 48,221 parcels, or 60.6%. Likely public water: 69 parcels, or 0.1%. Known private well: 9,591 parcels, or 12.1%. Likely private well: 10,361 parcels, or 13.0%. Another 11,036 parcels, or 13.9%, have no data. Conflicting data covers 282 parcels, or 0.4%. A further 13,573 are not applicable. Both maps take their percentages from built parcels. Both leave out parcels where the service does not apply. DOH says the maps are based on sources of varied accuracy and scale provided by multiple organizations.

Clay County is a named stakeholder in one of Florida’s basin plans. It is the Lower St. Johns River Main Stem Basin Management Action Plan. DEP prepared it as part of a statewide watershed management approach. The goal is to restore and protect Florida’s water quality. DEP worked with the basin’s stakeholders on it. The final plan is dated June 2025. It is a basin plan, not a Clay County plan. Its responsible entities include Clay County and the Clay County Utility Authority. The list also names the City of Green Cove Springs and the City of Keystone Heights. It names the Town of Orange Park and the Town of Penney Farms.

The plan restates the rules that apply inside a BMAP area. One rule covers new systems. Since July 1, 2023, section 403.067, Florida Statutes, has prohibited a new onsite system where connection to a publicly owned or investor-owned sewerage system is available. Where it is not available, a lot of one acre or less must have an enhanced nutrient-reducing system, or another that achieves at least 65 percent nitrogen reduction. A second rule covers the case where central sewer is unavailable. The owner must then install a DEP-approved enhanced nutrient-reducing onsite system. It has to achieve at least 65% nitrogen reduction. Another wastewater system that achieves at least 65% reduction also meets the rule. That applies within all BMAP areas.

A separate section of the plan covers systems already in the ground. The owner of an existing system must connect to sewer once the utility gives written notice that connection to its sewer line is available. The deadline is 365 days from that notice. Section 381.00655, Florida Statutes, requires the utility to send it. There is a second case. An existing system needing repair or modification must connect to an available sewer line. The deadline there is 90 days from notification by DEP. The plan does not say whether a particular Clay County address sits inside the BMAP area, or whether central sewer is available there. DEP is the office that can say whether an address is inside the BMAP area; whether sewer is available at it is a question for the utility.

Green Cove Springs has city rules of its own, and they are not all written the same way. Section 90-402(c) makes it unlawful to construct or maintain a septic tank. The ban also covers a privy, a privy vault, a cesspool and any other facility used to dispose of wastewater. It comes with a carve-out: except as otherwise provided in the city’s building code. Nothing in it limits the ban to new development, and nothing in it names a place. The two subsections above it each name one. Both (a) and (b) reach within the city or in any area under the jurisdiction of the city. Those words sit in (a) and (b), not in (c). Section 90-471 is the well-side rule, and it names no place either. It makes it unlawful to use well water in the plumbing of any house or building. Four stated exceptions go with it, and the FAQ below sets them out. It does not ban wells, and it says nothing about permitting. How far each of these two rules goes is for Green Cove Springs to answer.

A third rule is written differently. Section 90-307 sits in Article V of the city code, and Article V carries its own scope section. Section 90-305 sets that scope. The article applies to the services and facilities of the sanitary sewer system of the city. It applies within and without the corporate limits of the city. So this duty follows the city’s public sewer, wherever that sewer runs. It covers an owner or lessee of a house, building or property used for human occupancy, employment, recreation or other purpose. The property must abut a street, alley or right-of-way that holds a public sanitary sewer now, or that will hold one in the future. That owner must install suitable toilet facilities at his expense. They must be connected directly to the proper public sewer. The deadline is 90 days after the date of official notice to do so. One condition governs all of it. The public sewer must be, or must in future be, located within 200 feet of the house, building or property. Whether the city’s sewer runs past a particular property is a question for the city.

Gator’s septic work in Clay County covers tank pumping, inspections, tank installation, drain field repair and replacement, and septic pump repair. On the well side it covers pump repair and replacement, pressure and bladder tanks, well water testing, and well inspections for a home sale. The office is open Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm. Gator holds FDEP Business Authorization SA0222129 and licence CUC1225779.

Towns and communities in Clay County

We work across the county. The places with a page of their own are linked; the rest are served the same way.

Green Cove Springs, Keystone Heights, Orange Park, Penney Farms, Middleburg, Fleming Island, Lakeside, Oakleaf Plantation, Bellair-Meadowbrook Terrace, Asbury Lake.