Oviedo council agrees to citywide education push, weighs tiered reclaimed‑water rates to fund conservation grants

Oviedo council members on June 2 discussed a plan to reduce irrigation and stormwater impacts by combining education, an adopt‑a‑pond push and possible tiered reclaimed‑water rates that could fund a conservation grant program.

The discussion centered on data volunteers gathered showing that some homeowners associations (HOAs) and apartment complexes are irrigating far more than recommended, and on a proposal to use higher reclaimed‑water tiers to create a grant fund for pond revitalization and other water‑saving projects. No formal vote was taken; council members indicated they would convene an informational meeting for top users and interested residents as a near‑term next step.

The issue drew local resident Keegan Ford, who presented property‑level usage figures the volunteers compiled. Ford, who described Twin Rivers Community HOA as “averaging 820,000 gallons per month,” said the community put the equivalent of 5.6 inches of water per month on 5.2 acres of HOA‑owned land and noted a single‑month usage he described as a corrected figure of 338,000 gallons (he also cited larger monthly totals in his slides). Ford told the council that, by contrast, recommended total water (rainfall plus irrigation) for St. Augustine grass is about 4 to 6 inches per month and that many systems were not accounting for rainfall. He said, “There’s a lot of low hanging fruit here. There’s a lot of opportunity to drastically reduce consumption.”

Deputy Mayor Natalie Teukert, who framed the item as the Oviedo Water Conservation Grant Program, said she favored a targeted approach that “take[s] the highest users and nudg[es] with a little bit higher rate” to seed a grant program but also stressed outreach and education. Council member Ott said he was “not in favor of changing our potable water rates at all” and preferred pursuing education and property‑specific fixes first.

Council discussion laid out three distinct ideas that would operate in parallel: (1) limited increases for the highest potable‑water users, (2) a new tiered reclaimed‑water rate structure for large commercial/reclaimed accounts that would generate funding for grants, and (3) a pond revitalization pilot funded by any reclaimed‑rate revenue. Staff and volunteers described practical next steps — verifying HOA irrigated acreage, checking rain‑gauge installations and targeting the highest reclaimed‑water users for outreach — rather than immediately raising rates.

Volunteers and staff said they are coordinating with outside agencies and programs, including the St. Johns River Water Management District, the Seminole Soil and Water Conservation District and UF/IFAS, which can provide technical assistance, rain‑gauge deployment and continuing education for community managers. Staff noted the city already has an adopt‑a‑pond program (city policy dated May 6, 2013) that could be expanded to allow safe, limited volunteer work and plantings on city ponds; the presenters emphasized that some pond work is limited by water‑level fluctuations and regulatory constraints.

Council members and staff also discussed operational constraints for reclaimed water. City staff said Oviedo typically uses its reclaimed supply and supplements from a pipeline from Ironbridge as needed; during moderate or severe droughts — when neighboring systems also need supply — pressure and availability can become constrained. The city has a 5,000,000‑gallon wet‑weather storage tank used only in specific conditions.

On timing and implementation, volunteers told the council they already have a list of the top reclaimed‑water users and that outreach to community‑association managers is under way; several council members said education should be the immediate priority and could be paired with a public meeting where staff and volunteers review each top user’s numbers. Council members agreed informally to schedule a city‑level informational meeting to present the data to the largest users and to the public; there was no formal motion or vote recorded on rate changes.

The discussion also flagged several operational fixes volunteers recommended and staff said they would pursue: verifying that rain gauges are installed and functioning, adjusting irrigation program run times, and asking landscaping contractors to raise mower heights and avoid blowing clippings into storm drains. The reclaimed‑water tiering proposal would be structured so that parcels’ irrigated acreage (often documented in developer agreements) could be used to set fair thresholds rather than a single per‑meter gallon cutoff, a city staffer said.

Next steps noted by council members and staff: volunteers will continue outreach to HOAs and managers, staff will organize an informational meeting and compile/verify usage data, and the council asked staff to return with a refined proposal that lays out how reclaimed tier revenue could fund a grant program and how education and technical assistance would be delivered. No rate change was adopted at the June 2 meeting.

Two direct quotations used above are from meeting speakers and attributed as spoken in the meeting: Keegan Ford, the resident presenter, said, “There’s a lot of low hanging fruit here. There’s a lot of opportunity to drastically reduce consumption.” Deputy Mayor Natalie Teukert said she favored taking “the highest users and nudging with a little bit higher rate.”

The council’s discussion linked water conservation to stormwater costs and Lake Jessup water quality obligations and emphasized starting with outreach and on‑the‑ground fixes before pursuing rate changes that would affect HOA budgets. Staff and volunteers indicated they would bring back a proposed outreach schedule and data verification by late summer.