Septic & well services in Union County

Working in Union County

DEP supervises Florida’s five water management districts. It publishes a table of which counties sit in each one. The Suwannee River row names its full counties first. They are Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison, Suwannee, Taylor and Union. The row then names portions of Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Jefferson and Levy. Union is in the named-in-full group, not the partial group. The St. Johns River row on that same table does not name Union at all. One line of a state table is what makes well permitting here different.

The Suwannee District permits wells itself. Union County has no health department delegation for wells. Rule 40B-3.041, F.A.C., carries the requirement. A well within the District needs a District permit first. That covers construction, repair, modification and abandonment. The only exceptions are the activities expressly exempted in Rule 40B-3.051, F.A.C. Chapter 40B-3 does hold a rule titled Delegation. What it delegates stays inside the District. General administration of the chapter goes to the District’s Executive Director. The Executive Director is expressly authorized to issue permits under it. No county office appears in that rule.

Rule 40B-3.051 exempts four activities, and the full list is short. It covers wells constructed, repaired or abandoned solely for a test hole, and wells constructed, repaired or abandoned for temporary dewatering. It also covers modification of a potable well to a non-potable well type. And it covers installation of piezometers or monitoring wells to monitor wetlands or other surface waters. An ordinary household well is not any of those. Two chapters govern the rest. Chapter 40B-3 F.A.C. is titled Permitting of Well Construction, and it is the Suwannee District’s. Chapter 62-532 F.A.C. is titled Water Well Permitting and Construction Requirements. The chapter number is the part people get wrong. Union’s is 40B-3.

Septic is the other half of the split. It did not move. The Florida Department of Health in Union County issues the permit. Its Environmental Public Health Program runs the work, and that program’s menu carries onsite sewage disposal. DEP’s onsite sewage permitting FAQ sorts the state into two county blocks. Union sits in the second block. There, permits for OSTDS are issued by the Environmental Public Health Program of the Florida Department of Health’s local county health department. Two dates sit behind that, and they do different work. Since July 1, 2021, DEP has been in charge of enforcing Florida laws and rules about onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems. That is enforcement. Starting January 2, 2025, DEP manages septic system permitting in 16 counties. That is permitting, and Union is not one of the 16. The county health department states the result. Outside those 16 counties, your local county health department will still handle septic system permitting and inspections. DEP puts the rest on the legislature. The transition of the remaining 50 counties will occur depending on legislative approval. The standards are in section 381.0065, Florida Statutes, and Chapter 62-6, F.A.C.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 place-by-county file gives Union County three rows. They are Lake Butler city, Raiford town and Worthington Springs town. All three are typed as incorporated places. Those three rows are every Union County row in the file. That file is a register of Census places, not a roll of every community in the county.

The Florida Department of Health inventories how each parcel gets water and handles wastewater. Its Florida Water Management Inventory maps for Union County are dated 2022. The map date on their face is 05Apr2022. They count built parcels, not people and not households. On the wastewater map, 1,340 parcels are known septic (34.4%). Another 2,144 are likely septic (55.0%). FDOH labels that second group likely, and its map keeps the likely count apart from the known count. Another 383 parcels (9.8%) carry no data. The sewer side of that map records 1 parcel as known (0.0%) and 28 as likely (0.7%). FDOH warns that there are gaps in the data. Those gaps come from a lack of available information, and from several public water and sewer providers not submitting data. The drinking water map records 1,564 parcels as known private well (40.1%). Another 1,585 are likely private well (40.7%). A further 624 (16.0%) carry no data, and 17 (0.4%) conflict. Both maps take their percentages from built parcels, including parcels of unknown built status. Both leave out parcels where the service does not apply. On the wastewater map that group holds 2,654 parcels.

USGS keeps a groundwater monitoring location in the county. It is called Lake Butler Well No. 1. Its record gives the national aquifer as the Floridan aquifer system. It gives the local aquifer as the Upper Floridan Aquifer. Well depth is 357 feet. The same record places the well in the Santa Fe subbasin hydrologic unit. That is one monitoring well, not a survey of domestic wells. No typical Union County well depth is published in the sources behind this page.

The regional picture comes from a 2007 USGS study of the Suwannee River Basin. It is Scientific Investigations Report 2007-5031. Its study area is northern Florida and southern Georgia. The report describes three principal hydrogeologic units there. They are the surficial aquifer system, the intermediate aquifer system, and the Floridan aquifer system. The intermediate one contains the intermediate confining unit, the Hawthorn Group. The report says the Upper Floridan aquifer is present throughout the study area. It calls that aquifer extremely permeable and typically capable of transmitting large volumes of water. Union County is named in the report for the extent of an earlier model. Motz (1995) simulated flow in the surficial, intermediate, and Upper and Lower Floridan aquifers, and the Fernandina Permeable Zone. That model covered most of Union County, all of Bradford County, and the eastern two-thirds of Alachua County within the district. Those are basin-scale findings published in 2007, and a model extent from 1995. Neither is a reading under any one property.

Part of Union County lies inside the Santa Fe River Basin Management Action Plan area. DEP adopted that plan in June 2025. The plan says the BMAP area comprises over one million acres in Alachua, Bradford, Columbia, Gilchrist, Suwannee, and Union counties. That is portions of six counties. The plan never says the whole of Union County is inside the line. Four responsible entities from this county are listed in it. They are Union County, the City of Lake Butler, the Town of Raiford and the Town of Worthington Springs. The plan also assigns Union County nitrogen reductions. Its Devil’s Ear springshed table gives the county 4,737 pounds per year. A separate table covers the area outside the springsheds. That one gives the county 4,330 pounds per year. About 40 acres of Union County fall inside the Ichetucknee Priority Focus Area. Whether a particular address sits inside the BMAP boundary is a map question for DEP or the county health department. This page does not answer it.

The plan lists activities that are prohibited in the BMAP boundary. They come under section 373.811, F.S. One of them reaches septic systems directly. It covers new OSTDS on lots one acre or less inside the BMAP where central sewer is available. If central sewer is unavailable, then the owner must install a DEP-approved enhanced nutrient-reducing OSTDS. That system has to achieve at least 65% nitrogen reduction. Another wastewater system that achieves at least 65% reduction also meets the rule. The plan’s own bullet is written for new systems. That prohibition binds inside the boundary, not across the county.

Gator works both trades in Union County. Septic jobs here include tank pumping and inspections, new tank installation, drain field repair and replacement, and septic pump repair. Well jobs include pump repair and pump replacement, pressure and bladder tanks, well water testing, and well inspections for a home sale. Hours are Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 6:00pm. Gator holds FDEP Business Authorization SA0222129 and licence CUC1225779.

Towns and communities in Union County

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

Lake Butler, Raiford, Worthington Springs.