This sounds definitive, “Don’t parse my words or anything like that. We’re not moving forward with Water First. All right? We’re not moving forward with Water First.”

That’s Rob Bradley, Chair of the St. Johns River Water Management District (SJRWMD) Governing Board, at about 1:44:41 in SJRWMD’s video of their July 14, 2026, board meeting.

Has one fat lady sung about WFNF? @ SJRWMD 2026-07-14, No word on cancelled contracts

But right before that, he said, “I don’t know what will happen in the future. Maybe something will be reconstituted in some way shape or form.”

And right after he said “We’re not moving forward with Water First,” he also said, “That doesn’t mean that five years from now or three years from now or whatever, that some technology doesn’t come along that people who were concerned about it, it makes people less concerned about it. I think that technology is going in the right direction. We’ll see how it goes. And, um, and here we are.”

He also called anybody who thinks desalination is the answer “insane”, thus disparaging the elected Boards of County Commissions of a dozen counties in the Suwannee District, not to mention the Governor of Florida. He offered no evidence for his opinion. Since Rob Bradley was a Florida State Senator until he was term-limited in 2020, maybe insulting all the elected officials of the area he says he wants to help and the governor who appointed him to the SJRWMD board is some clever political ploy that I don’t understand.

Chair Bradley also called for public discussion, which of course I support. But he made no mention of SRWMD and SJRWMD’s one attempt at a very disappointing “Open House”. And he called for the same clique of utilities and WMDs to come up with another plan, with no mention of public input, just like the path that led to WFNF and massive public opposition.

More about those things below. We can keep depending on JEA and the WMDs to come up with political disasters like WFNF, or we can call on the legislature to provide better legal guidance and to reform the WMDs. It’s an election year. Ask every candidate about these things.

For much more about WFNF, see https://wwals.net/issues/wfnf

Five or Three Years from Now

As for “five years from now or three years from now”, three years from now is about when the contractors SJRWMD hired in November 2025 are supposed to finish their first Project Milestones. And years 3 to 4 are their milestone for, “Preliminary Design Report Development.”

WATER FIRST NORTH FLORIDA, 2025-07-08 –SRWMD Staff
PDF

Same as last month, SJRWMD did not answer Giovanna Galotini’s question about why is there still $125 million in SJRWMD’s budget and have the contractor’s contracts been cancelled? That’s at about 1:38:21 in this month’s SJRWMD video.

Giovanna Galotini, Marion County: Still 125 Million for WFNF in Budget? 2026-07-14 –SJRWMD

Public conversations

There were some positive notes. Rob Bradley said, at about 1:20:51, “At some point in time, people have to talk this out, publicly, and quit hiding, and be afraid of having these conversations.”

That would be good. However, other than SRWMD sending people to various County Commission meetings to not answer many questions, the only attempt by SRWMD and SJRWMD to have a public discussion started with an announcement of a Public Meeting in Jasper, Hamilton County. But SRWMD quickly and unilaterally changed that to SRWMD HQ in Live Oak, Suwannee County. Then SRWMD changed it again to an “Open House” at UF IFAS in Live Oak.

That March 19, 2026, meeting, with informational tables staffed with SRWMD and SJRWMD people and contractors, had no opportunity for public discussion that everyone could hear. It was well attended, but left many attendees disappointed.

About all that, the Hamilton County BOCC wrote to SRWMD on March 24, “Finally, the Board must note the utter disrespect that has been shown to the Board and citizens of Hamilton County.”

Desalination

Rob Bradley said at about 1:19:48, “And if you think desalination is the answer, you are insane. It can’t work. And whoever is telling you that is not telling you the truth. And I’m pointing at the cameras. OK? Because that’s not a fix-all. It doesn’t work. And the examples that these people who have led you astray provide are not applicable to our situation. So that’s not your solution. And that’s the truth, whether you like it or not.”

So the Chair of the SJRWMD Governing Board called twelve of the County Commissions of the Suwannee District “insane”.

See the resolution passed by the Middle and Lower Suwannee River and Withlacoochee River Task Force.

RESOLUTION NO. 2026-01 OPPOSING THE WATER FIRST NORTH FLORIDA AQUIFER RECHARGE PROJECT AND RECOMMENDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ALTERNATIVE WATER DESALINIZATION PROJECT
PDF

And see the resolution passed by the North Central Florida Regional Planning Council.

RESOLUTION NO. 2026-14
PDF

Providing no evidence and proclaiming, “And that’s the truth, whether you like it or not” is the sort of high-handed attitude that caused the Suwannee BOCC to write to SRWMD, “Once the spigot is turned on, it is impossible to predict the consequences which will impact literally every person in the area. Our citizens should not suffer the consequences of such hubris.”

Suwannee County’s Objection to Water First North Florida Project, 2026-03-17 –Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners
PDF

And let’s not forget the Florida Governor, Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Opening of New Reverse Osmosis Facility in the Florida Keys:
New Disaster-Resilient Water Treatment Plant to Serve Key West and the Lower Keys.

If desalination is good for Key West and for Tampa and for many locations in the South Florida Water Management District, not to mention the 100 mgd drinking water South Texas Desalination Project, why is it “not applicable to our situation.” Ditto at least half a dozen desalination plants in the Middle East and Australia, all of which cost less than WFNF, produce more million gallons a day, and took 4-5 years to build, not 13 or more like WFNF.

Let’s hear some real evidence.

Who is to blame for the WFNF disaster

So if WFNF was so great, why is SJRWMD singing a different tune now? Apparently SRWMD made them do it, and also “noise on facebook.”

At 1:02:27 Rob Bradley said, “We’ve dealt with SRWMD on the Water First deal and that’s been a disaster. And, um. They don’t it doesn’t even appear that they want to cooperate or do anything to solve their problem. Which is their perogative. But I would just like to see something concrete.”

He continued, ”Because I thought we were heading down a road of having something concrete and then Suwannee decided that they were not going to go down that road. We were trying to help them, by the way. Somehow we got blamed of being a bad guy, but we’re trying to help them.”

He said still more about how SJRWMD is completely blameless.

At about 1:19:08 he said, “All I heard was some kind of conspirancy with JEA to dump our water.”

Let’s turn back to the March 3, 2026, Florida Senate Rules Committee meeting, which heard the ratification bill, SB 7034, for WFNF. Hugh Thomas, SRWMD Executive Director, starts at about 02:41:30 in the video by The Florida Channel.

When questioned by Senator Tracie Davis of Jacksonville, he said, “The idea behind this is that there is currently a permitted discharge into the St. Johns River that is groundwater that has been pumped up and utilized, and now it is a treatable wastewater resource. And so Senate Bill 64 requires that that discharge be eliminated in the future.”

Nobody in the July 14 SJRWMD meeting said anything about SB 64 that I heard. Yet the SRWMD E.D. says that’s where WFNF started.

So, yes, JEA and SJRWMD are trying to get rid of treated wastewater.

Hugh Thomas, E.D. SRWMD, the idea behind this 2026-03-03 –FL Senate Rules Committee on the Florida Channel

Hugh Thomas continued, “And so with that in mind, we have, the Suwannee District, St. Johns, and EPD, we have worked with the utilities for the east coast region to take that water rather than it going out to the Atlantic, the technology exists; let’s treat it back to where it can be utilized in an area of Florida that needs an ongoing water supply for our future. The technology itself is still being developed. There is research work that is going on now to treat some of the forever chemicals, the PFAS and emerging contaminants of concern that you’ve heard some about. And that water will be treated to a high quality….”

He didn’t say to how high quality. And SB 64 explicitly says wastewater going to replenish wetlands or to increase flows and levels does not have to be treated as high as if it was going directly into a river.

But if it were to get treated to drinking water quality, I know “an area of Florida that needs an ongoing water supply for our future.” Feed the treated wastewater into Jacksonville’s drinking water supply, and reduce by that much the amount of groundwater Jacksonville withdraws. Nobody in the July 14 SJRWMD meeting mentioned that idea.

At that Senate Rules Committee meeting, Senator Jennifer Bradley, who is married to Rob Bradley, and who got elected to his seat after he was appointed by the governor to the SJRWMD board, made a speech supporting the ratification bill and voted for it. However, when ratification came up on the Senate floor in HB 1417, she voted against it, along with Senator Corey Simon and Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith.

A regional plan is needed

At about 1:20:51, Chair Bradley said, “Now we’re starting to make long-term decisions without having what we thought was an approach that has been politically reduced to rubble.”

Apparently everyone agrees some sort of regional plan is needed. At about 1:24:01, Neal Shinkre, Director, St. Johns County Utility Department, said, “Nobody’s going to bond you to build water plants if you tell them I have an interim permit and I don’t know what will happen after five years.”

Neal Shinkre Director St Johns County Utility Management 2026-07-14 –SJRWMD

Sure, but this is SJRWMD’s idea of how to get such a plan. At about 1:11:43, Chair Bradley said, ”We need to have a serious discussion with all our utility partners….”

That’s the same mistake they made before: not even talking to elected officials, much less the public or independent experts.

We learned in a document that SRWMD sent me about why they rejected desalination that the WMDs and those same utility partners held “a series of facilitated workshops” that led to WFNF.

Table 2.1 Workshops with Sponsor Organizations
PDF

I have not found a single elected county or city or town elected official or ordinary citizen who even heard about those workshops at that time, much less was invited to participate in them.

Chair Bradley also said, “I want to hear more from all the stakeholders” instead of “Reacting to just noise on facebook.”

Well, I sent SJRWMD a letter on April 13, 2026, spelling out specific concerns and specific alternatives, and received no response.

2026-04-13–WWALS-WFNF-SJRWMD-0001
PDF

2026-04-13–WWALS-WFNF-SJRWMD-0002
PDF

Two citizens spoke about WFNF at the June SJRWMD Board meeting and got zero response.

Merrillee Jipson, Columbia County, 2026-06-09 –SJRWMD
1:08:10 Public Comment on this GRU item

So SJRWMD considers anything on facebook to be “just noise” and ignores direct letters and public speakers at its own meetings.

Maybe this is also some clever political ploy that I don’t understand.

Chair Bradley remarked at about 1:16:22, “There’s just been too much that’s happened over the last few months…. It’s like whistling through a graveyard…. We actually took the lead on trying to find solutions…. Tell us where we’re wrong…. At some point in time, we need help…. If you want our water, ask for it.”

Well, the Suwannee Basin doesn’t want your water. And many of us have tried for a year now to tell you where you’re wrong.

The burden of proof

At 1:06:41 Chair Bradley said, “I am so fed up with what I saw go down with that Water First situation.” He said he was waiting for the calvary[sic] to come to explain.

At around 1:20:51 Chair Bradley elaborated, “The things that people are upset about, if I heard what they were told, I’d be upset, too. They’re not being told accurate information. But if I heard what they were told, I’d be upset, too. And then no-one came forward to give them the right information…. The things that people are upset about, if I heard what they were told, I’d be upset, too. They’re not being told accurate information. But if I heard what they were told, I’d be upset, too. And then no-one came forward to give them the right information.”

Well, that’s a basic way they’re wrong, which I spelled out in my letter of April 13, “It is SRWMD (and SIRWMD and JEA) that is proposing this huge, complex, and expensive project. The promoters bear the burden of proof.”

That is a burden that they have failed to shoulder.

And if they want help, holding further meetings with their closed group of WMDs and utilities is not how to get it.

Golf courses are sacred

SJRWMD’s priorities remain skewed.

At 1:12:39 Chris Farrell, Northeast Policy Associate with Audubon Florida, proposed switching from water-guzzling St. Augustine grass to other grasses.

Chris Farrell, Audubon Florida 2026-07-14 –SJRWMD Video

This provoked a reaction from SJRWMD Governing Board member Douglas Burnett at 1:15:41 “Ain’t no way I’m going to go from St. Augustine Grass to Bahia. That doesn’t happen in Florida.”

Chair Bradley chimed in, “No bahia from the general, I like it.”

No St. Augustine Grass to Bahia Grass, 2026-07-14 –Douglas Burnett SJRWMD

There ought to be a law

SJRWMD Board member Janet Price put her finger on it at 2:15:04, “We have a statutory, the District has a statutory responsibility when someone applies for a permit, it has to be pushed forward. Unless there is a legal defensible reason not to issue that, we are obligated to do it.”

All the Way to Tallahassee 2026-07-14 –Janet Price, SJRWMD

She offered a solution, ”That would have to go all the way to Tallahassee for a bigger discussion. And if we are in that position, we are way-way down the rabbit hole in trouble about how we have managed our water.”

Many of us would agree that SJRWMD and SRWMD are deep in that rabbit hole; witness WFNF and its aftermath.

Remember the 2024 attempt to put golf courses and pickleball courts in state parks, which roused so much public opposition the governor withdrew it?

Well, in 2025, the legislature passed a law against it.

Now we need a law forbidding inter-basin transfers of wastewater, treated or not.

And, directly addressing Janet Price’s point, a law requiring WMDs to come up with a water budget and to reject groundwater withdrawal permits that would exceed that budget.

While we’re at it, how about a constitutional Right to Clean Water.

How about having WMDs elected instead of appointed? Or at least require half their board members to be environmentalists?

You can probably think of other appropriate laws.

Now is the time to ask every candidate for public office to back such laws.

Or we could continue to depend on the unelected WMD and JEA boards to come up with ore political disasters.

 -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/

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