Do you think a billion dollars to pipe treated wastewater from Jacksonville into the Suwannee Basin is a bad idea?

If so, please ask your statehouse delegation and Water Management District Board to explain why limiting water withdrawals would not be a better idea, or to stop this project.

Everybody is downstream from somebody else. But we don’t need the Suwannee River Basin to be downstream from Jacksonville. Sure, we’re poorer than Jacksonville, but we’re not their sacrifice zone.

Two Water Management Districts say this Water First North Florida project would replenish levels and flows in the Lower Santa Fe and Ichetucknee Rivers, including the Ichetucknee Headspring, by sending water into the Upper Floridan Aquifer through wetlands.

How can this expensive and risky project be the best way to conserve levels and flows in these Outstanding Florida Waters, which are supposed to be worthy of special protection because of their natural attributes?

How can risking the source of our drinking water be a good idea?

Why is piping treated JAX wastewater into the Suwannee River Basin, better than limiting water withdrawals? Ask FL statehouse and WMD boards

Here’s how to find your legislators:

https://pluralpolicy.com/find-your-legislator/

Also ask SRWMD to hold a Public Hearing explaining why this project is better and safer than limiting water withdrawals.

Let’s see the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Including evidence about how much JEA’s Buckman Wastewater Treatment Facility actually removes PFAS forever chemicals, drugs, and artificial sweeteners. Plus single points of failure such as sole-source contractors.

Suwannee River Management District
9225 CR 49
Live Oak, FL 32060
Phone: 386.362.1001
Toll Free: 1.800.226.1066
Hugh Thomas, Executive Director
Hugh.Thomas@SRWMD.org

Also ask your SRWMD Board members:
https://mysuwanneeriver.com/134/Current-Board-Members

The Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) seems to know surprisingly little about this joint project with the St Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD).

They don’t know where the water would go into wetlands to “clean” it up some more, and they don’t know where it would go to infiltrate into the Floridan Aquifer. They don’t have a pilot study nor wetland site assessments.

We have found much more information in the SJRWMD Board meeting minutes, such as SJRWMD hired a consultant in November 2025. The consultant is supposed to work up the pilot study and preliminary wetland assessments by 2028.

But those documents raise even more questions.

1. Why is the St Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) making billion-dollar decisions on water levels and flows in the Suwannee River Basin?
2. Why is the Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) merely a junior non-voting partner along with Clay County Utility Authority, Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU), JEA, and St. Johns County Utility Department?

   
   North Florida Regional Recharge Project – Conceptualization, 2025-07-08 –SRWMD
   PDF

3. Where is the evidence that the source wastewater plant would remove PFAS, drugs, and artificial sweeteners?
4. Why should we believe that JEA’s Buckman wastewater plant will never fail and send untreated wastewater through the pipe, despite being bigger than Valdosta’s wastewater system, which has repeatedly failed?
5. Why is piping treated wastewater from Jacksonville into the Suwannee River Basin even an option, instead of limiting water withdrawals?
6. Since SRWMD won’t even declare a drought warning with even voluntary water withdrawal limitations, despite its own Hydrologic Conditions Report and the U.S. Drought Monitor saying the entire Basin is in drought, why should we believe piping across watersheds is a good idea?
7. Why not have Jacksonville get a grip on its water usage? A report to SJRWMD says agricultural water withdrawals account for almost half of all withdrawals in the study area, while “Public Supply” accounts for almost half in the SJRWMD part of the area.

People from Jacksonville come to Suwannee River Basin springs and rivers all the time. So Duval County people, please ask SJRWMD these questions.

Water First North Florida, Next Steps: Pilot Study, Siting Study RFQ, Wetland Site Assessment, 2025-07-08 –SRWMD
PDF

How about have Jacksonville reduce its water usage, since its withdrawals have about as much effect on the Floridan Aquifer as all of agriculture in the Suwannee River Basin?

If Jacksonville’s wastewater is treated so well it can be piped to recharge springs in the Suwannee River Basin, how about instead pipe that water into Jacksonville’s drinking water?

If people don’t want to drink it, how about use it for golf courses, datacenters, and other industrial uses in their own basin?

Let’s see some explanations.

Or stop this project.

For easier sharing, here’s a change.org petition:

https://c.org/8CgGBpLv7r

WFNF Petition QR Code

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

You can help with clean, swimmable, fishable, drinkable, water in the 10,000-square-mile Suwannee River Basin in Florida and Georgia by becoming a WWALS member today!
https://wwals.net/donations/

Short Link: