Water Service in Orlando — Orlando, Florida

Water service in Orlando, the county seat of Orange County, Florida, is administered by the Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC), a statutory entity created by a Special Act of the Florida Legislature in 1923 to manage municipal water and electric service to the City of Orlando and adjoining portions of Orange County. As of the U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023, Orlando has a population of 311,732, a figure that reflects the sustained demand growth OUC must plan for across its service territory.

OUC draws potable water from the Lower Floridan Aquifer, a deep subterranean freshwater reservoir located roughly a quarter of a mile below the earth's surface, as documented on OUC's water services page. The water is treated with an advanced ozone process before distribution. The utility's water system serves a city whose renter-majority population — 60.3 percent of occupied households, per the ACS 2023 — relies heavily on landlord-managed utility connections, making the public water infrastructure a foundational element of daily urban life.

The Florida Municipal Electric Association describes OUC as the second-largest municipal utility in Florida and the 14th-largest in the country, measured by its approximately 283,000 electric meters across Orange and Osceola counties — a scale that reflects the magnitude of the utility's water infrastructure as well.

The Orlando Utilities Commission functions as a distinct statutory body rather than a standard city department. The City of Orlando's advisory boards page describes OUC as 'a statutory commission created by Special Act of the Florida Legislature in 1923 to manage the municipal water and electric service to the City of Orlando and adjoining portions of Orange County.' OUC's founding charter, documented at ouc100.com, established a five-person Commission to serve alongside the Mayor of Orlando.

Orlando operates under a strong-mayor form of government, as documented by the Central Florida Expressway Authority, with the mayor serving as chief executive and directly overseeing OUC. Mayor Buddy Dyer has held that office continuously since 2003, making this oversight relationship a longstanding feature of the city's utility governance. The Orlando City Council, composed of the mayor and six district representatives, holds legislative authority including the adoption of the city budget and approval of mayoral appointees relevant to OUC's governance structure.

OUC General Manager and CEO Clint Bullock leads the utility's operational leadership. As published on OUC's official news page, Bullock has stated: 'As Florida's population continues to increase, so too does the demand for safe, high-quality water' — framing the utility's capital planning around regional demographic growth.

OUC's primary water supply is the Lower Floridan Aquifer, accessed from wells drilled to depths of a quarter mile or more below the surface, as documented on OUC's water services page and confirmed in the 2024 OUC Water Quality Report. The aquifer is fed through rainwater passing through hundreds of feet of sand and rock in a natural filtering process, as described by the Orange County Florida government. Orlando's inland position in Central Florida, above this deep groundwater system, makes the Floridan Aquifer the defining infrastructure of the metropolitan area's water supply.

After extraction, OUC treats its water using an advanced ozone process designed to address taste and odor concerns inherent in deep aquifer groundwater. Ozone treatment is documented on OUC's water services page as the utility's primary treatment method. The 2024 Water Quality Report provides the annual accounting of regulated contaminants tested under federal and state standards.

OUC's water services page also confirms that the utility complies with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2024 national limits for six types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water, and that OUC continues regular testing under the EPA's Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR5). On July 1, 2025, OUC ceased adding fluoride to drinking water in compliance with Florida Senate Bill 700 — the Florida Farm Bill signed by Governor Ron DeSantis on May 20, 2025 — which banned fluoride and certain other additives in municipal water systems statewide. Naturally occurring fluoride from Florida groundwater, at an average concentration of approximately 0.14 mg/L, continues to appear at trace levels in the distributed supply.

According to WKMG/ClickOrlando, approximately half of OUC water delivered to customers is used for irrigation rather than indoor consumption, a pattern that shapes the utility's demand projections and conservation planning.

Organized water service in Orlando predates OUC by more than two decades. In 1901, a private company — Orlando Water and Light Company — became the city's first combined power and water provider, according to the Florida Municipal Electric Association. The private utility operated until 1923, when Judge John M. Cheney, then the owner of Orlando Water and Light Company, proposed municipalizing it. The Florida Legislature responded by establishing the Orlando Utilities Commission, enabling Orlando's citizens to purchase the utility through bond issuance — a transaction that transferred water and electric service into permanent public ownership.

The OUC Centennial History records that in 1924 — one year after the Commission's founding — OUC opened a water treatment plant on Lake Ivanhoe with a capacity of 4 million gallons per day. That facility represented the foundational infrastructure of the modern municipal water system.

Over subsequent decades OUC extended its service footprint in step with Orlando's growth. In the 1990s the utility extended both water and electric service to St. Cloud in Osceola County, described in OUC's centennial history as 'the first partnership of its kind in the state.' That expansion reflected the broader metropolitan growth that accelerated after the arrival of major theme parks in the 1970s transformed Orlando from a mid-sized citrus-era city into one of Florida's largest urban centers.

Two consequential developments in 2024 and 2025 have reshaped the near-term trajectory of Orlando's water service.

In April 2024, OUC announced the Southeast Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Plant, a major capital project sited on 15 acres in the Lake Nona area of southeast Orlando. As reported by WKMG/ClickOrlando and confirmed on OUC's official news page, the facility will encompass 40,000 square feet and will drill up to 2,000 feet into the Lower Floridan Aquifer to access brackish groundwater, which is then treated through high-pressure microfiltration. Construction was scheduled to begin in November 2025, with full operation targeted for 2033. OUC stated the project is designed to secure the region's drinking water supply through 2045. The plant represents OUC's primary alternative water supply strategy in response to population-driven demand growth across Central Florida.

The second development concerns water chemistry policy. On May 20, 2025, Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida Senate Bill 700, commonly called the Florida Farm Bill, which prohibited municipal water systems from adding fluoride and certain other additives to drinking water, effective July 1, 2025. OUC's water services page documents that the utility complied with the new law on that date, halting fluoride addition. Trace levels of naturally occurring fluoride — approximately 0.14 mg/L on average — remain in the water drawn from Florida groundwater. The fluoride ban applied statewide to all Florida municipal water providers simultaneously.

Orlando's water service does not operate in isolation from the broader Orange County water system. Orange County Utilities operates a parallel municipal water system serving unincorporated county residents, drawing from the same Floridan Aquifer and using aeration and chlorination treatment. The two systems — OUC serving incorporated Orlando and portions of Orange County, and Orange County Utilities serving unincorporated territory — share the same underlying aquifer resource while operating as separate administrative entities.

OUC's service territory also extends into Osceola County through its St. Cloud partnership, established in the 1990s and described by the OUC Centennial History as the first arrangement of its kind in Florida. This cross-county service structure makes OUC's water planning relevant to residents and local governments beyond Orlando's municipal boundaries.

The Southeast Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Plant in Lake Nona — the utility's most significant current capital project — is positioned at the southeastern edge of OUC's service territory, proximate to the growth corridors connecting Orange and Osceola counties. OUC's projection that the plant will meet regional demand through 2045 reflects both the utility's long planning horizon and the sustained population growth that the Florida Municipal Electric Association attributes to Central Florida's broader demographic trajectory. The Florida Senate Bill 700 fluoride ban, signed in May 2025, applied uniformly across all Florida municipal providers, meaning Orange County Utilities and every other adjacent municipal system made the same chemistry change as OUC on July 1, 2025.