Orange County passed a rate increase in February 2025, and shortly after, Ocoee officials received a letter informing them that the city no longer qualified for their rate category without maintaining a full day's backup supply of reclaimed water.

While Orange County has said its rate increase was tied to increasing landscape irrigation costs and customer demand, Shadrix said the way the county “went about it was very bad business.”

“They gave us till October 1 to comply, and in order to comply, we're gonna have to spend another $20 million to build a water treatment system, a water tank, and dig a well, which kind of defeats the entire reason we need reclaimed water,” Shadrix said.

He said the city is “working feverishly to try to get that solution in place, but it's bad government,” referring to the city’s conservation and sustainability efforts.

He added that the commission is absorbing the $1.2 million in increased costs for reclaimed water “instead of passing that on to citizens.”

Shadrix said the city is in a poor bargaining position because the Ocoee doesn’t produce enough of its own reclaimed water for irrigation, and Orange County doesn’t need Ocoee as a client.

“They can just say, We just won't sell to you,” he said. “But we need the reclaimed water because it reduces the reliance on our potable system” for irrigation.

An Orange County spokesperson said they had no additional comment "beyond the information we have already provided."