Water Service in Jacksonville — Jacksonville, Florida

Water service in Jacksonville, Duval County is administered by JEA, a community-owned utility that has operated for approximately 130 years and provides electric, water, sewer, and reclaimed water service across the consolidated city and portions of surrounding counties. According to the JEA H2.0 Purification Program page, the utility serves approximately 404,000 customers with more than 120 million gallons of drinking water per day. Jacksonville's consolidated city-county government structure — the only such arrangement in Florida, as documented by WJXT News4Jax — means that JEA's service territory corresponds broadly to all of Duval County, a geographic footprint that makes its water system among the largest municipally owned systems in the southeastern United States. The City of Jacksonville's Office of Economic Development notes that JEA holds excess water capacity, a condition it describes as unlike most Florida communities. The sole source of that supply is the Floridan Aquifer, one of the world's most productive aquifer systems, according to the same source.

The physical scope of JEA's water system is documented by the City of Jacksonville's Office of Economic Development: 134 artesian wells feed 38 water treatment plants, and the distribution network extends across more than 4,449 miles of water lines. On the wastewater side, more than 3,900 miles of sewer collection lines serve the consolidated territory. As of that documentation, JEA serves more than 357,000 water customers and more than 279,000 sewer customers.

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) smart meters have been installed for 100 percent of JEA's electric customers, with upgrades to AMI smart water meters underway, according to the JEA About page. The transition to smart water meters is intended to improve consumption monitoring and leak detection across the sprawling service territory.

The newest wastewater facility in the system is the Greenland Water Reclamation Facility, which began serving the Southside and St. Johns communities in February 2025. Per a JEA media release dated February 14, 2025, this facility — built on 80 acres near the E-Town development — is capable of treating up to 4 million gallons per day and is described as JEA's first new wastewater treatment facility in Duval County in 48 years. Construction began in March 2022.

Jacksonville's drinking water is drawn entirely from the Floridan Aquifer, a geological formation the City of Jacksonville's Office of Economic Development describes as one of the world's most productive aquifers. The JEA 2024 Water Quality Report confirms the Floridan Aquifer as the utility's sole water source and documents that JEA tests more than 45,000 water quality samples per year.

Federal compliance with the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions (LCRR) required JEA, by October 16, 2024, to complete a materials inventory of all service lines and develop a lead service line replacement plan, as documented on JEA's LCRR compliance page.

To supplement and protect the aquifer supply, JEA has developed the H2.0 Purification Program, established in 2014 according to Duval County Medical Society coverage. The program employs a multi-barrier treatment sequence — membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet advanced oxidation — to purify reclaimed water to potable quality for direct aquifer replenishment. The JEA 2024 Water Quality Report identifies the H2.0 Purification Center as the first facility of its kind in Florida operating under the state's new potable reuse rule. The H2.0 Purification Center is located at 7599 Southside Boulevard on approximately 12 acres and is designed to purify 1 million gallons per day with a planned two-decade expansion trajectory, per JEA's project site. Aquifer replenishment well installation was anticipated to complete in June 2025, according to JEA's construction project page, which recorded a well installation start date of August 29, 2024.

JEA operates a reclaimed water program documented on its reclaimed water program page that traces its formal structure to two local policy instruments: the City of Jacksonville Reclaimed Water Ordinance, enacted in 2006, and the River Accord, entered in 2007. Under the River Accord framework, treated reclaimed water is supplied for irrigation purposes, serving the dual function of reducing nitrogen discharge into the St. Johns River and reducing potable water demand on the Floridan Aquifer.

The H2.0 Purification Program, described above, extends this conservation logic further by returning purified reclaimed water directly to the aquifer. According to JEA's project site, the H2.0 Purification Center is also designed to function as an interactive educational hub where visitors can observe the purification process, serving as a community engagement and training facility alongside its operational role.

JEA has also directed infrastructure investment toward environmental equity objectives. According to the JEA About page, the utility invested $38.6 million in infrastructure repair in the historic Eastside neighborhood of Jacksonville, in collaboration with the City of Jacksonville and community partners.

Several significant water and wastewater milestones have occurred in 2024 and 2025. In February 2025, JEA announced that the Greenland Water Reclamation Facility had entered service for the Southside and St. Johns communities — the first new wastewater treatment plant JEA has opened in Duval County in nearly five decades. The 80-acre facility near E-Town carries a treatment capacity of 4 million gallons per day.

Also in the spring of 2025, the JEA board acted on rate adjustments. A JEA media release dated March 25, 2025 documents that the board approved a 3.7 percent increase in overall residential utility bills effective April 1, 2025, followed by a further 5.1 percent increase effective October 1, 2025, for fiscal year 2026. The board characterized both increases as necessary to support ongoing infrastructure investment and sustainability initiatives.

Federal Lead and Copper Rule Revisions required JEA to complete a service line materials inventory and produce a lead service line replacement plan by October 16, 2024, as noted on JEA's LCRR compliance page. The H2.0 Purification Center aquifer replenishment wells were under active construction through the period, with completion anticipated in June 2025 per JEA's construction project page, and the JEA 2024 Water Quality Report indicated the center itself was slated to open in late 2025.

JEA operates under its own board of directors as a city-owned utility. The Jax Daily Record reported that the JEA board voted 7-0 to approve a $2.37 billion operating budget for fiscal year 2025-26, up from $2.121 billion in the prior year. As part of that budget, JEA's contribution to the City of Jacksonville totaled $179 million, including a one-time $40 million payment — a record transfer that reflects the structural financial link between utility operations and municipal government.

For residential customers, the rate trajectory set by the board's March 2025 action means a 3.7 percent increase in overall utility bills took effect April 1, 2025, with a further 5.1 percent increase scheduled for October 1, 2025, according to the JEA board's press release. The board described these adjustments as tied to the cost of infrastructure investment programs, including the Greenland Water Reclamation Facility, the H2.0 Purification Center, and the ongoing AMI smart meter rollout.

Mayor Donna Deegan's FY2025-26 budget proposal to the City Council included a $687 million capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2026 and a $1.7 billion five-year Capital Improvement Plan spanning 2026 through 2030, as outlined in the City of Jacksonville's published budget address, within which JEA's contribution to city coffers plays a structural financing role.

Jacksonville's consolidated city-county government, formed when voters approved consolidation on August 8, 1967 and it took effect on October 1, 1968, as reported by WJXT News4Jax, means that JEA's water service territory encompasses the entirety of Duval County. Four communities — Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach, Atlantic Beach, and Baldwin — maintained their own separate governments when consolidation occurred, as documented by the City of Jacksonville Beach's government page; those communities may have distinct utility arrangements outside JEA's primary residential service zone.

The scale of demand that JEA serves corresponds to Jacksonville's population of 961,739 and its 422,355 total housing units, as recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023. The consolidated government structure that created a single taxing and service-delivery entity in 1968 also concentrated water and sewer infrastructure responsibilities in JEA, which predates consolidation by several decades. According to the JEA About page, the utility has operated for approximately 130 years, meaning its origins trace to the late nineteenth century, before the modern consolidated city existed. That long operational history underlies a system now delivering more than 120 million gallons of drinking water per day to a metropolitan service area whose boundaries are defined not by urban density alone but by the full extent of Duval County.