Septic & well services in St. Johns County

Working in St. Johns County

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 place-by-county file lists fifteen places in St. Johns County. Three of them are incorporated. They are St. Augustine city, St. Augustine Beach city and Marineland town. Marineland is the odd one of the three. That same file carries the town under Flagler County as well, so only part of it is here. The other twelve are census-designated places. They are Butler Beach, Crescent Beach, Flagler Estates, Fruit Cove, Hastings, Nocatee, Palm Valley, St. Augustine Shores, St. Augustine South, Sawgrass, Vilano Beach and World Golf Village. None of the twelve is incorporated. Hastings sits on that list now. In the Bureau’s 2010 Florida place file, the same place code was an incorporated town. Those two files record a change in type and nothing more about it.

Fifteen Census places is not a list of every community in the county. The U.S. Geological Survey carries dozens of other named populated places in St. Johns County. Switzerland and Elkton are two of them. A record like that proves the name exists and that USGS assigns it to this county. It says nothing about how big the place is, or where its edges are.

A homeowner planning a well often expects the water management district to issue the permit. In St. Johns County the paperwork goes somewhere else. The District has sixteen water well permitting delegation agreements with local health departments. St. Johns County’s health department holds one of them. The District names two other arrangements outside that group. It has a delegation agreement with a local or county government, the city of Jacksonville. It has a memorandum of understanding with the Suwannee River Water Management District. The delegations reach the permitting of all wells located in the St. Johns District and not permitted by the District. So an application here goes to the Florida Department of Health in St. Johns County.

Four kinds of well sit outside that delegation, and the delineated-area well is the one that matters most here. Florida law defines a delineated area. It is an area with known groundwater contamination, or a vulnerable area. Additional water well construction requirements are in place there, to protect public health and groundwater resources. The District permits those wells in counties that do not regulate them, and it names St. Johns among those counties. Diameter puts another well outside the delegation, at six inches or greater in outside diameter at land surface. Gang wells are outside it too. That applies where the total nominal casing sizes equal six inches or more, and the purpose is obtaining water other than for dewatering. Two or more wells coupled together with a common header or manifold make a gang well. Geothermal wells round out the group. Open-loop geothermal wells six inches or greater in outside diameter at land surface are the District’s, and so are all closed-loop geothermal wells. Anyone whose well falls in those four goes to the District for the permit, not to the county.

One delineated area in the county is named in a government document. The Florida Department of Health in St. Johns County publishes a one-page water well permitting chart, effective September 11, 2020. It says the Silvex site is the only 62-524 area in St. Johns County. The chart shows the site on a map image. It prints no boundary, no address and no coordinates. So it does not tell any reader whether a particular property is inside that area. That is a 2020 statement, and the chart does not say where the area runs.

The same chart sets out which office permits which well here. A District permit is required for all wells six inches or larger in diameter at land surface, regardless of use type or location. A District permit is also required for any gang well when the total nominal casing sizes equal six inches or greater. The chart describes a gang well as two or more wells coupled together. Under six inches, several columns route to the same office. Public supply wells read “District Permit,” whether limited use under DOH or community and non-community under DEP. Wells in a 62-524 area read “District Permit.” So do closed-loop earth-coupled geothermal wells. Injection wells, including air sparge wells, read “DEP.” Every cell on that sheet is as of its September 11, 2020 effective date. On fees for a well one of its delegated authorities permits, the District says to check with your county health department or local government.

Septic permits come from that same health department, through its Environmental Public Health Program. The rules behind them are written elsewhere, and the department says so in a heading of its own. The onsite sewage program has moved to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Its page names DEP as the governing authority. Effective July 1, 2021, DEP is responsible for implementing the Florida Statutes and regulations applicable to these systems. What did not move is the permit itself. Under Florida’s Clean Waterways Act of 2020, the county health department offices continue to do the permitting and inspection for septic tanks. The department asks people to keep working with them for permitting needs.

Where a county applies is set out in DEP’s permitting FAQ, which sorts Florida into two tables. St. Johns sits in the table where permits are issued by the Environmental Public Health Program of the Florida Department of Health’s local county health department. DEP is taking the other table over in stages, and it says how far it has got. It permits onsite systems in Northwest Florida and Marion County. Its timeline dates Phase 1, Escambia County to Jefferson County, to January 2, 2025. Marion County followed on July 1, 2025. St. Johns appears in neither. For the remaining 50 counties DEP gives no date, only a condition. It says the transition will occur depending on legislative approval. The standards are section 381.0065, Florida Statutes, and Chapter 62-6, F.A.C., titled “Standards for Onsite Sewage Treatment and Disposal Systems.”

The Florida Department of Health also maps how each parcel in the county is served. Its Florida Water Management Inventory wastewater map for St. Johns County is stamped September 4, 2022. It counts built parcels rather than homes. On the sewer side it puts 55,276 parcels (54.8%) in the known column and 601 (0.6%) in the likely column. On the septic side it puts 10,660 parcels (10.6%) as known and 14,279 (14.2%) as likely. Known and likely are separate columns, and the map does not add them together. It records 19,979 parcels (19.8%) with no data, and three with conflicting data. A further 25,874 parcels are recorded as not applicable. With almost a fifth of built parcels carrying no data, the map does not settle what share of the county is on septic.

The drinking-water map is stamped the same day and reads the same way. Public water accounts for 66,060 known parcels (65.4%) and 512 likely ones (0.5%). Private wells account for 5,361 known parcels (5.3%) and 4,473 likely ones (4.4%). Another 24,528 parcels (24.3%) carry no data, and 107 carry conflicting data. A further 25,631 are not applicable. Both maps take their percentages from built parcels, and both leave out parcels where the service does not apply. FDOH says the maps are based on sources of varied accuracy and scale provided by multiple organizations.

St. Johns County is a named responsible entity in the Lower St. Johns River Main Stem Basin Management Action Plan. DEP finalized that plan in June 2025. The plan also lists “St. Johns County (formerly Hastings)” as a separate responsible entity with its own load allocation. The plan area is a basin rather than a county. It covers the portion of the St. Johns River that flows between the mouth of the Ocklawaha River and the Atlantic Ocean. The Ocklawaha is the river’s largest tributary, and the drainage area is 2,750 square miles. A lot is not inside that boundary simply because it is in St. Johns County. The plan does not say that every parcel in the county is in it.

Two sections of that plan matter to a septic owner. Both are rules about areas, not about addresses. Since July 1, 2023, section 403.067, F.S., 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. Where central sewer is unavailable, the rule changes. Inside any BMAP area the owner has to install a DEP-approved enhanced nutrient-reducing onsite system that achieves at least 65% nitrogen reduction. Another wastewater system that gets to the same 65% also meets the rule. A later section covers systems already in the ground. The owner of one has 365 days to connect after the utility gives written notice that its sewer line is available. Section 381.00655, F.S., is what requires the utility to send that notice. A system that needs repair or modification has 90 days from the day DEP gives notice. Both clocks start at somebody else’s notice. Whether sewer is available at an address is a question for the utility.

The City of St. Augustine adds rules of its own, and one of them turns on failure. Section 26-6 sets two geographies. Inside the city limits, all new development is required to connect to city water and wastewater service when available. All existing development inside the limits must connect within three hundred sixty-five days of when such service becomes available. Outside the city limits, but within the city’s service area, the test changes. All new development there must connect when service is available. All existing development there must connect when available if and when the existing private water system, wastewater system, well or septic tank fails. That last rule is the one a well or septic owner tends to meet first, because a failure is what triggers it. The service area is wider than the city limits, and the code does not map it. Section 26-4 says only that the map is on file with the city clerk. Whether an address sits inside that area is a question for the city.

The same code lists prohibited practices in section 26-28, and item (11) covers septic. It is unlawful to construct, maintain or use any privy, privy vault, septic tank, cesspool or other facility intended or used for the disposal of sewage. That runs inside the city service area, except as herein provided. The closing clause is part of the rule, and the exceptions it points to are not set out here, so this is not a flat ban on septic tanks in St. Augustine. Item (11) reaches the city service area rather than the city limits alone. It reaches neither unincorporated St. Johns County nor the census-designated places whose names begin with St. Augustine.

The city’s floodplain management article adds two design standards. Section 8-468 covers sewage. It applies to all new and replacement sanitary sewage facilities, private sewage treatment plants and on-site waste disposal systems. Those must be designed in accordance with the standards for onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems in Chapter 64E-6, F.A.C. and ASCE 24 Chapter 7. The stated aim is to minimize or eliminate infiltration of floodwaters into the facilities, and discharge from them into flood waters. Section 8-469 covers water supply. It applies to new and replacement water supply treatment facilities, private water treatment plants, pumping stations and water storage systems. Those must be designed in accordance with the water well construction standards in Chapter 62-532.500, F.A.C. and ASCE 24 Chapter 7. Both sections name facilities, plants, pumping stations and storage systems, not household equipment. Both sit in the floodplain article rather than applying citywide. The city code cites Chapter 64E-6 here, while DEP’s permitting FAQ cites Chapter 62-6 for onsite standards. The city and the health department are the offices that can say which one governs a particular job.

St. Augustine Beach has a rule of its own, and it is a maintenance standard rather than a permitting rule. Its land development regulations cover plumbing in two parts. All plumbing fixtures, facilities and equipment must function properly. They must be properly connected to the Anastasia Sanitary District sanitary sewer system, or to some other disposal system approved by the state board of health or county health department. Water supply must be drawn from a source approved by the state board of health or county health department. “State board of health” is the code’s own wording. The section names no permit issuer, and it does not prohibit a septic system.

What lies under the county was mapped by USGS in 1984, in Water-Resources Investigations Report 83-4187. The report covers St. Johns County as a whole. It found the primary sources of water to be the surficial and Floridan aquifers. The surficial aquifer was the principal source of public and rural water supplies in most of the county. Its water generally met drinking water standards. The Floridan was the major source of water for irrigation. In much of the county, its water did not meet the secondary drinking water standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The same report named what governs quality in that aquifer. It pointed to the presence of ancient seawater and the dissolution of gypsum and anhydrite. In the southwest part of the county, it found that intensive pumpage for irrigation had resulted in substantial increases in chloride concentration. Those are 1984 findings, and the chloride one belongs to the southwest of the county rather than to the whole of it or to any one property.

One current source is regional rather than local. The St. Johns River Water Management District says more than 90 percent of people in northeast and east-central Florida use groundwater as their water supply, and that it comes from an aquifer. It calls the Floridan the largest aquifer in the southeastern United States. Both statements describe northeast and east-central Florida as a whole, not St. Johns County on its own.

Gator is a septic and well contractor, and both trades are in scope across St. Johns County. On the septic side that means pumping a tank, inspecting one, installing one, repairing or replacing a drain field, and fixing a septic pump. On the well side it means repairing or replacing a well pump, fitting pressure and bladder tanks, testing well water, and inspecting a well for a home sale. Calls are answered Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm. Gator holds FDEP Business Authorization SA0222129 and licence CUC1225779.

Towns and communities in St. Johns County

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

St. Augustine, St. Augustine Beach, Butler Beach, Crescent Beach, Flagler Estates, Fruit Cove, Hastings, Nocatee, Palm Valley, St. Augustine Shores, St. Augustine South, Sawgrass, Vilano Beach, World Golf Village.