Stormwater Utility in Melbourne, Florida

The Melbourne stormwater utility is the Engineering Department program that runs the city's storm drain system, its pollutant discharge permit program and its Indian River Lagoon cleanup projects (Melbourne Engineering Department).

Engineering lists the Stormwater Utility next to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, illicit discharge inspection and elimination, and the Indian River Lagoon Basin Management Action Plan among its duties. The Melbourne stormwater staff answer at 321-608-7341 or swu@mlbfl.org, and the department's listed location is City Hall, Third Floor, 900 East Strawbridge Avenue (Melbourne Engineering Department). The city's financial report counts 5 full-time equivalent Stormwater Utility positions in fiscal 2025 (FY2025 ACFR, Schedule 17).

Melbourne is a municipal separate storm sewer system, or MS4: its stormwater system carries runoff, while a separate sanitary sewer system carries and treats wastewater (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page). The city's stormwater page ranks runoff first among the lagoon's pollution sources: rain washing off driveways, roads, roofs and yards picks up fertilizer nutrients, chemicals, bacteria, sediment and trash and carries them through ditches and storm drains that lead to the Indian River Lagoon. Many Melbourne neighborhoods were built before treatment was required in new construction, so not all of that water is treated today.

The Melbourne stormwater fee is a non-ad valorem assessment on real property, created under Florida Statutes 403.0893 and priced through a rate resolution that City Council adopts at a public hearing (Melbourne Code section 50-18).

Under the Melbourne code, the council must hold that rate hearing on or before September 15 in any year a rate change is proposed, and the resolution carries a schedule of rates and property classifications. By the same September 15 date each year, the council adopts a budget for operating and maintaining the stormwater program in the next fiscal year (Melbourne Code section 50-18). The unit for rate making is the equivalent residential unit, which the code sets at 2,500 square feet of effective impervious area such as roofs and pavement (Melbourne Code section 50-15). The code leaves the schedule of rates and property classifications to that council resolution.

Money collected goes into a Melbourne stormwater utility fund that the code says may be used only for the stormwater program: operating and maintaining the system; planning, design and construction; administration; management services such as permit and development review; and debt service on stormwater capital improvements, all held as trust funds of the city (Melbourne Code section 50-26). The city's stormwater page adds that improvements are paid for by the stormwater utility fee and by grants (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page).

Melbourne's MS4 permit requires a stormwater management program built on six minimum control measures, and a 2007 federal mandate requires the city to cut nutrients reaching the Indian River Lagoon (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page).

The six Melbourne measures are public education and outreach; public participation and involvement; illicit discharge detection and elimination; construction site runoff control; post-construction runoff control; and pollution prevention and good housekeeping on city roads, lots and maintenance yards. For construction, the city regulates sites that disturb one-half acre of land or more (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page).

The nutrient mandate came from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in 2007, aimed at water quality good enough for Indian River Lagoon seagrass to grow back. Melbourne calls the required reduction significant and says it will take many capital stormwater treatment projects; its response is a plan using retention facilities, baffle boxes, wetlands, rain gardens and exfiltration systems, coordinated with the St. Johns River Water Management District and FDEP (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page).

Melbourne has installed 18 baffle boxes since March 2015 and plans more at key locations, at a rate the city puts at roughly one a year, with Cherry Street finished and Apollo Boulevard under construction in 2025 (Melbourne 2025 Year in Review).

The Melbourne baffle box program mixes new boxes in places that had no treatment with retrofits of older boxes installed 20 to 30 years ago, upgraded to catch more trash and remove nitrogen and phosphorus. The finished Apollo Boulevard box will measure 30 by 31 by 24 feet (Melbourne 2025 Year in Review). The commitment figures come from the financial report's list of construction commitments over $100,000, which also shows $165,000 for Grant Place pipe lining and $360,817 for a stormwater conveyance inventory and evaluation (FY2025 ACFR, construction commitments). The Riverview Park box has its own entry in the Riverview Park guide.

The Harbor City Treatment Train Phase 1 is a pair of baffle boxes for runoff between Babcock Street and the railroad south of NASA Boulevard, set out in a 2021 Florida Senate funding request (Florida Senate funding request 1123).

The Melbourne request describes the project as the first phase of a water quality and flood prevention effort for a 410-acre basin, with the two boxes treating about 131 acres built before stormwater treatment rules and an estimated reduction of 1,164 pounds of nitrogen and 302 pounds of phosphorus a year (Florida Senate funding request 1123). The boxes are second generation designs with biosorption activated media. Its funding table lists $627,500 in state funds requested, $803,300 in local match and a total project cost of $1,430,800 for fiscal 2021-2022, and it says design and permitting were funded by the City of Melbourne at $175,800. The same request's construction line gives the city and county matching funds as $627,500, a different figure from the $803,300 local match in its funding table.

The local Melbourne match was to come from city stormwater utility fees and Brevard County's SOIRL lagoon fund, the county program the request names as a partner (Florida Senate funding request 1123). The city's FY2025 financial report lists a $144,730 commitment under the name South Harbor City Blvd Stormwater Treatment Train (FY2025 ACFR).

Storm drain pollution in Melbourne goes to the city's Stormwater Hotline, 321-608-7341, which takes calls and texts, while a pothole or broken inlet is a Streets Division matter at 321-608-5300 (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page).

The Melbourne hotline is for someone blowing grass clippings, trash or yard debris into the road, curb or a storm drain, or pouring an unknown substance into a drain, and it also takes questions about lagoon work. For a petroleum spill or wastewater release, the city lists three steps: the Florida State Watch Office at 1-800-320-0519, a pollution notice on the FDEP website and a call to the city at 321-608-7341 (Melbourne Stormwater Utility page).

The Melbourne code gives non-binding fine guidance for illicit discharge violations: $200 per day or per occurrence for breaking the discharge prohibitions or the site remediation and monitoring rules, $125 per day or per occurrence for industrial and construction site requirements, $125 per occurrence for reporting failures and $50 per day or per occurrence for erosion and sedimentation controls (Melbourne Code section 50-89).

Cleanup in Melbourne also happens on the street. In 2025 the city's street sweeping removed 691,605 pounds of litter, its baffle boxes captured 100.55 cubic yards of debris, and six rain barrel workshops reached 117 participants (Melbourne 2025 Year in Review).

Last verified: October 21, 2026, against the Melbourne stormwater and engineering pages, Code chapter 50 sections 50-15, 50-18, 50-26 and 50-89, the FY2025 ACFR, the 2025 Year in Review, the FDEP grant list and Senate request 1123.