Cocoa Beach Sewer and Reclaimed Water

Cocoa Beach sewer customers are served by the city's own Water Reclamation Facility on Minutemen Causeway, which treats wastewater to advanced standards and sends most of it back out as irrigation water (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation).

The plant is not a city-only operation. Its customer list, about 4,400 accounts, reaches past the city line to Port Canaveral, Patrick Air Force Base and surrounding unincorporated areas (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation). Treatment was upgraded under a Water Resource Management Plan written in response to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements to cut nutrient discharges into the Banana River. The plan's key upgrades were conversion to Advanced Wastewater Treatment, process changes to meet strict nutrient discharge limits, and construction of a reclaimed water storage well, known as an aquifer storage and recovery or ASR well (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation).

That storage well is what lets the system balance the seasons. The city says it stores excess reclaimed water when demand is lower than wastewater flows or storage capacity, holds down the cleaned wastewater discharged into the Banana River Lagoon, and adds supply during the dry season. The treated water goes to three named uses: residential lawns, city green spaces and golf course turf, and the city reports that over 90% of treated wastewater is reused (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation).

Sewer treatment and reclaimed water are two of the four utility services the City of Cocoa Beach itself provides, alongside garbage pick-up and stormwater management; drinking water is a City of Cocoa service with its own bill (Cocoa Beach Finance utilities page). The Cocoa Beach utilities overview guide covers that split and the sign-up steps; this page goes into the sewer and reuse details.

The city's posted sewer bill has three usage tiers in four rate columns, residential and commercial, inside and outside city limits, and the first tier doubles as the minimum monthly charge (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

Under that table, the first tier charge covers the first 3,000 gallons a month and is also the minimum charge, and each additional 1,000 gallons is billed at the second tier rate up to 5,000 gallons and at the third tier rate beyond that. A commercial account inside the city starts at $45.10, and a commercial account outside the city starts at $56.36 (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

The date on that table is the main caution. The fee page heads it Sewer Rates October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025, and adds the line Fees rates through 09/30/2025, so the posted figures belong to a fiscal year that has already closed (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees). The city's Service Fee Schedule page says its listed fees supersede the Master Fee Schedule 2023-06, and the 2025 resolutions it lists cover golf, civil citations, street performers, booting, fire, Country Club, Centennial Square and parking fees; none is labeled as a sewer or reuse rate, and the page points to a separate Sewer Rates Page for utilities (Cocoa Beach Service Fees). A current rate is best confirmed with the Water Reclamation Department at 321-868-3228, open Monday to Friday 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

A new home, condo or apartment unit connecting to Cocoa Beach sewer is charged $2200 per unit inside the city and $3300 per unit outside it, and commercial uses are charged by unit, machine or seat (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

Restaurants and bars are the cases where the count is not obvious. The fee page states that seating is calculated as one seat per 15 square feet (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees). Laundromats in commercial buildings, resorts, motels or hotels pay per machine inside the city, while the outside-city column for the same row reads per unit, a wording difference that sits on the city's own table (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

Opening an account carries a separate deposit listed by service area: the sewer deposit is $60 in the city service area and $80 in the county service area, while reuse, garbage and stormwater deposits are listed for the city service area only (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

Yes: the city offers a Sewer Credit Application for water that is billed to a customer but does not go into the sewer system (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

The authority comes from the city code section the fee page quotes as Section 19-5 (H): the City Manager is authorized to provide a method of credits to sewer bills when water use billed to the user is not deposited in the sewer system, with procedures approved by resolution of the City Commission. The fee page adds that the City Commission authorizes the City Manager, or a designee, to adopt those procedures, and it asks interested customers to review and submit the application (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees).

The test in the code language is narrow: the water has to be billed to the customer and never deposited in the sewer system, and the application is the route for asking. The city's Permits menu lists the Sewer Credit Application beside building, garage sale, parking, events, vacation rental and dune trimming permits, so the form can be reached from either page (Cocoa Beach Permits).

Reclaimed irrigation water costs $200 to connect a single family unit on a 1 inch line plus $15.53 a month, and the city FAQ says it is not supplied outside Cocoa Beach (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees, Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

Larger properties have their own lines on the fee page. Multi-unit or commercial service pays $360 for a 1 and a half inch line or $540 for a 2 inch line. Non-metered service for buildings of three or more units is charged $4.38 per unit per month in Fiscal Year 2025, and tracts larger than one acre, or service pipes 2 inches or larger, add $2.93 for each additional half acre, or portion of one, beyond the first acre (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation Fees). Those per-unit and per-acre lines are labeled FY 2025 on the city page, the same closed fiscal year as the sewer table.

On who can connect, the city's FAQ is direct: the city does not supply reclaimed water outside of Cocoa Beach, naming Viera and Brevard County residents as outside the system (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation). The Reclaimed Water page words its reach differently, saying the irrigation system provides sprinkler water throughout the city and adjacent areas (Cocoa Beach Reclaimed Water). The two city pages leave that difference unexplained, so an address near the city line should ask the Reuse Hotline at 321-868-3277 before planning on a connection (Cocoa Beach Reclaimed Water).

The city frames the payoff in water saved: it cites studies showing that customers on reuse save approximately 2,000 gallons of potable water a month after connecting, and it says the reclaimed water meets all Department of Environmental Protection quality standards (Cocoa Beach Reclaimed Water).

A Cocoa Beach reuse connection needs a dual check valve on the drinking water side, installed by City of Cocoa Utilities, tested at installation by a certified or licensed tester and tested every year after that (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

The FAQ lists the other conditions. Cross-connecting reclaimed water with any other water source, or using it for drinking, is prohibited, and reuse water cannot enter a residence or building. Vacuum breakers must be installed on all outside potable water faucets to prevent back siphonage. Connected devices must comply with the city code, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Guidelines for Water Reuse and the American Water Works Association M-14 cross-connection control manual (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

Properties with a private irrigation well face one more step: city procedures cover making sure all wells on properties receiving reuse water are completely disconnected from the irrigation system (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation). The FAQ also states that reclaimed water is not drinking water, that customers have no recourse against the city for lost supply during distribution downtime or for vegetation damage from reclaimed water, and that applicants receive a brochure on public safety and reclaimed water use (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

The rules themselves come from the City Manager, who issues reclaimed water procedures that the City Commission then adopts; city staff set the hours and the number of days a week reclaimed water may be used (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

The Water Reclamation Department can be reached at 321-868-3228 for 24/7 assistance, and after hours urgent problems such as sewer backups can also be reported through dispatch on the Brevard County Sheriff's Office non-emergency line, 321-868-3251 (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

Before calling about weak or missing irrigation pressure, the Reclaimed Water page is the place to check: it carries an Alerts box and a Current Status line at the top, and when supplies are short because of high demand or low water availability, irrigation drops to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from midnight to 10 AM. The city adds that availability may vary with system demand and operational needs (Cocoa Beach Reclaimed Water). The Reuse Hotline at 321-868-3277 handles usage questions (Cocoa Beach FAQs, Water Reclamation).

State law sets the backdrop for all of this. Florida declares reuse of reclaimed water a state objective in the public interest, requires utilities that provide reclaimed water to summarize their metering and rate structure in an annual reuse report, and required utilities that dispose of effluent by surface water discharge to file plans by November 1, 2021, for eliminating nonbeneficial surface water discharge by January 1, 2032 (Florida Statutes section 403.064). The Cocoa Beach pages describe the storage well as reducing discharge to the Banana River Lagoon and the reuse system as eliminating discharge to the Indian River Lagoon, without citing that statute (Cocoa Beach Water Reclamation, Cocoa Beach Reclaimed Water).

Last verified: October 21, 2026, by re-reading the Cocoa Beach water reclamation, reclaimed water, reclamation fee, utilities, service fee and FAQ pages and section 403.064 of the Florida Statutes.