This brings the new connection fees for water to $1,343 and wastewater to $5,843 — per connection. If there is a separate connection for irrigation — homes constructed after 2010 have dual lines for potable water and reclaimed water for irrigation— the fee for that is $2,685.

The increases in the fee structure are intended to help defray the costs to upgrade and expand the Crest Avenue Wastewater Treatment Facility, which in 2022 was estimated to cost $46 million to complete. Costs have since more than doubled to $133.5 million.

These new higher impact fees will be paid by developers seeking to build new projects in the city, like subdivisions or commercial shopping centers, Stephen Pash, assistant city manager, told VoxPopuli in a later interview. He estimated that a developer who wanted to build a 100-home subdivision would pay an average of $100,000 in water-related impact fees.

“$100,000 for a developer is not much in that grand scheme,” Pash said.

Pash told VoxPopuli that the project engineer working on the wastewater treatment facility estimated that 75 percent of the costs are tied to state standards for requirements such as removing phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater, which contribute to algae blooms, and expanding the city's storage capacity for reclaimed water. (Tariffs and inflation have also contributed to the rise in costs, he said.)

The facility’s proximity to Wekiva Springs and Rock Springs puts it in the target area for water quality protections to “reduce the impact of nutrient pollution sources on Florida waters” according to an impact study conducted by Raftelis, a Maitland government and utility management consultant.  

“We brought [the facility] to new standards, which we’re required to accommodate where we are today as well as, we hope, all future growth,” Pash said.

The state also requires storage capacity for 21 million gallons of reclaimed water, Pash said. Currently the city has available storage for up to 5 million gallons of reclaimed water.

“So we have to expand substantially,” Pash said. The city is in the design stage for that phase of the project now.

Reclaimed water is recycled from water used for showering and toilets, once bio-solids have been removed and the water is then cleaned and treated.

“So we're not just flushing it down the toilet and sending it away,” Pash explained. “We then use it for irrigation, which trickles down and rejuvenates the aquifer."

This alternative water supply helps reduce the amount of potable (or drinking) water a city takes out of the Floridan Aquifer under its consumptive use permit, explained City Manager Jon Williams who described reclaimed water as a “very valuable resource.”