County Water and Sewer (Barefoot Bay and unincorporated South Brevard) — Brevard County, Florida

In unincorporated South Brevard the county's own water and sewer utility is the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District, run by Brevard County Utility Services, while the City of Melbourne supplies drinking water to unincorporated Brevard south of the Pineda Causeway.

Brevard County Utility Services operates six wastewater treatment plants and three drinking water plants, and as an enterprise operation it is funded entirely from customer user fees and does not receive any tax dollars (Brevard County Utility Services). The department publishes annual water quality reports for Brevard County water customers in Mims, Barefoot Bay and San Sebastian Woods. Its office is at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way in Viera, phone (321) 633-2091.

The City of Melbourne supplies drinking water to Melbourne, Melbourne Beach, Indialantic, Indian Harbour Beach, Satellite Beach, Palm Shores, Melbourne Village and unincorporated Brevard County south of the Pineda Causeway, and sells water wholesale to West Melbourne (City of Melbourne Water Treatment & Distribution). Melbourne treats lake water from Lake Washington at the John A. Buckley plant and Floridan Aquifer well water at its reverse osmosis plant.

On the sewer side, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection lists the county's BCUD/South Central Regional facility at 10001 N Wickham Rd in Melbourne as a site potentially accepting septage (Florida DEP septage facility list). Homes in unincorporated Brevard that are on septic tanks are outside any sewer rate on this page.

The Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District is a dependent special district of Brevard County, created on March 23, 1999, that provides water and sewer utility services to the Barefoot Bay community and is governed by the Board of County Commissioners.

The county commission is the district's governing body under Brevard County Code Section 98-182 and Section 153.60 of Florida Statutes, and the Brevard County Utilities Department oversees the district's operations, finances and investments (Barefoot Bay district resolution). The district's mailing address is 931 Barefoot Boulevard, Suite #2, Barefoot Bay, Florida 32976, and service at an existing Barefoot Bay home is requested through the district office.

Brevard County keeps Barefoot Bay as a separate enterprise. A 2026 rate study by Raftelis for the county describes two county water and wastewater systems, one covering the larger service territory and one for the smaller Barefoot Bay subsystem, with the Barefoot Bay water and wastewater systems set up as a utility enterprise fund (Raftelis Barefoot Bay Analysis). Mims customers are on the other county schedule, where a 7.5% increase took effect February 1, 2026 (Brevard County Utility Services rates).

The Barefoot Bay system still carries two loans. The district's remaining debt is Revenue Bond Series 2009A and Utility Refunding Revenue Note Series 2018, with final payments on December 1, 2029 and October 1, 2029 (Barefoot Bay rate resolution). The county commission has found that the district will have satisfied the purposes for which it was created by December 31, 2029 (Barefoot Bay dissolution ordinance).

From October 1, 2026, a Barefoot Bay home with a standard 5/8-inch meter pays a $23.97 monthly water base charge plus $5.90 per 1,000 gallons, and a $51.62 sewer base charge plus $11.92 per 1,000 gallons.

Those figures come from Exhibit B of the Barefoot Bay rate resolution, which keeps water service rates and monthly sewer charges at their 2025 levels without indexing (Exhibit B, Barefoot Bay rates). Brevard County Utility Services describes the change as a rollback of 5.15% for Barefoot Bay effective October 1, 2026, per Resolution 2026-003 (Brevard County Utility Services rates).

The water base charge scales with meter size, from $23.97 for a 5/8-inch meter to $35.95 for 3/4-inch and $59.90 for 1-inch, and water usage has no maximum billing (Exhibit B, water rates). Residential sewer for single-family homes, mobile homes and duplexes is billed on gallons used up to a maximum of 12,000 gallons per month, so a Barefoot Bay household pays no sewer commodity charge on usage above 12,000 gallons in a month.

Sewer charges are listed separately. The residential sewer rate is a monthly base charge of $51.62 and a commodity charge of $11.92, while commercial sewer users pay $14.33 per 1,000 gallons with no cap (Exhibit B, sewer rates). Reclaimed irrigation water costs a single-family or duplex customer $8.77 a month per unit (Exhibit B, reclaimed water).

Worked from those published rates, a Barefoot Bay home on a 5/8-inch meter that uses 5,000 gallons in a month would pay $53.47 for water ($23.97 plus 5 times $5.90) and $111.22 for sewer ($51.62 plus 5 times $11.92), or $164.69 before any reclaimed water charge. That arithmetic is a Digital Towns illustration from the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District schedule, not a bill issued by the district.

A new residential connection in the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District pays a $1,400 sewer plant capacity charge and a $275 water plant capacity charge in advance, plus a $40 tap-in charge and an annual sewer capacity reservation.

All new applications for service at a new location pay a sewer plant capacity charge of $1,400 per residential customer, and a nonresidential customer pays $9.33 per gallon per day of average use, but not less than $1,400 (Exhibit B, connection charges). Water service carries a separate plant capacity charge of $275 per residential customer, and the customer connection tap-in charge is $40. Barefoot Bay defines one equivalent residential connection as 150 gallons per day.

Before connecting, a Barefoot Bay lot owner reserves sewer capacity. The annual sewer capacity reservation charge is $150 for single-family dwellings, mobile homes and duplexes and $129 for multi-family units, with a one-time application fee of $100 (Exhibit B, capacity reservation). Unlike the monthly rates, these Barefoot Bay capacity and connection charges rise each January with the Consumer Price Index for sewer and water maintenance.

Paperwork splits by type of home. Service for a new unit under construction in Barefoot Bay starts through the Brevard County building permit process, while service for an existing residence is requested at the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District office, and all capacity and connection charges are collected before service begins or before a certificate of occupancy is issued.

Brevard County will dissolve the Barefoot Bay Water and Sewer District as of December 31, 2029, and fold Barefoot Bay into the countywide utility service area run by Brevard County Utility Services.

The dissolution ordinance, adopted by the Board of County Commissioners on July 21, 2026, dissolves the district under Section 189.071 of Florida Statutes as of December 31, 2029 and merges the Barefoot Bay utility service area into the countywide utility service area (Barefoot Bay dissolution ordinance). Title to district property passes to Brevard County, which also assumes all of the district's debt (dissolution ordinance, Section 3).

Rates are set to hold until then. The rate resolution says the Exhibit B user rates remain unchanged through the district's sunset, that they take effect October 1, 2026 and that Barefoot Bay will move to the countywide utility rate resolution by 2030 (Barefoot Bay rate resolution). The Raftelis study for Brevard County found the FY2025 rates enough to recover Barefoot Bay's costs and recommended 0.0% adjustments for each fiscal year from 2026 through 2030, citing a smaller capital program, capital reserves and grant funding.

A new plant is part of the plan. A county resolution authorizes the Barefoot Bay district to donate land to Brevard County for a new Advanced Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant that will eventually replace the existing water and wastewater plant in the district (land donation resolution). The county says the project will also benefit the remaining county utility service area for the region known as the South Brevard Utility Service Area (land donation resolution, page 2).

Last verified: October 12, 2026, on the Brevard County Utility Services website and the county's Legistar records, with the City of Melbourne and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.