Middle St. Johns - Florida Department of Environmental Protection

52 Water Quality Assessment Report: Middle St. Johns
Watershed Management Issues
Nonpoint Source Pollution and Management
Improperly designed on-site sewage treatment and disposal systems
(OSTDS) are a potential source of impairment for both ground water and
surface water in the Middle St. Johns Basin. The Florida Department of
Health (DOH) tracks OSTDS counts through county health departments.
While new systems are entered into the tracking system, there currently
is no way to track their abandonment efficiently, such as when sewering
occurs in an area. An anticipated new DOH computer system is expected
to track this additional information in the future.
Four counties—Osceola, Marion, Lake, and Putnam—were not
included in this evaluation of the numbers of OSTDS present. These
counties have comparatively small land areas and limited development in
the Middle St. Johns Basin. The Osceola area, at the southern tip of the
basin, consists of wetlands. Most of the Marion County area is in the
Ocala National Forest, as is about a third of the Lake County area. The
remainder of the Lake County area comprises rural and small, developed
areas. Very little of Putnam County is in the basin, with Welaka being the
largest developed area.
Most of Seminole County is in the Middle St. Johns Basin. The
OSTDS count reported by DOH headquarters is 37,943. The Seminole
County Health Department confirms that this figure is very close to the
actual numbers. The total number of systems in the county is increasing
each year, although not rapidly. The increase is relatively slow because the
number of new installations per year (approximately 400 to 500) is almost
cancelled out by the abandonment of systems (approximately 300). Most
of the developed areas in the county, including all or portions of Sanford,
Oviedo, Lake Mary, Longwood, Altamonte Springs, Casselberry, and
Winter Springs, are sewered. Failure rates in Seminole County are around
1 to 2 percent. The failures are not centered in any particular location
in the county. Many of the currently reported failures are for systems
that are about 20 years old, not at all an unusual or unexpected situation
(Cochrane, April 2002).
The portions of Volusia County that are in the Middle St. Johns Basin
do not include the “metropolitan” area of Daytona Beach, New Smyrna,
Port Orange, and Edgewater. The basin does, however, include the
developed areas of DeLand, Pierson, Orange City, Lake Helen, Deltona,
and DeBary. The Volusia County Health Department estimates that the
middle basin contains 38,000 OSTDS. To put that number into perspective,
the DOH headquarters’ figure for the entire county is 87,302
OSTDS. According to county health department information, Volusia
County was in the top 10 Florida counties in terms of systems installed
each year through the 1990s (Volusia County Health Department, 1999).
The Volusia County Health Department’s Environmental Health
Division prepared an objective report for the county on the issue of
central sewers versus on-site systems (Volusia County Health Department,
1999). It used a set of indexes to come up with numeric ratings
for more than 100 subcommunities in the county. The indexes included