Budget conference: Lawmakers agree to rescind $400M from controversial reservoir project

Image via St. Johns Riverkeeper.

A $400 million set-aside in last year’s budget could be returned to state coffers after both chambers of the Legislature approved the move.

The Senate has agreed to a House proposal for Florida’s 2025-26 spending plan that would claw the funds back into the state’s General Revenue Fund.

If approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis, the move would rescind funding for a controversial Central Florida reservoir project he agreed to in June 2024 amid complaints that the money came without public scrutiny or clear justification.

Lawmakers last year OK’d the funding for a water reservoir project spanning 5,000 to 7,500 acres in Okeechobee and Indian River counties, to be managed by the St. Johns River Water Management District.

Budget documents show the Grove Land Reservoir and Storm Water Treatment Area Project is intended to store and treat stormwater and agricultural runoff before it reaches the Indian River Lagoon.

But the $400 million earmark, believed to be one of the most significant water infrastructure allocations in recent Florida history, surfaced late in the legislative process, without any accompanying debate, bill sponsorship or committee review.

More than a year later, no lawmaker has claimed credit for the appropriation.

Environmental groups — including the Sierra Club, St. Johns Riverkeeper and Florida Springs Council — voiced sharp opposition. They argued the reservoir’s benefits were unclear and that the funding bypassed essential planning, permitting and scientific review.

Evan Properties Inc., which owns the land where the reservoir was to be built, said the structure is necessary because a water shortage in Central Florida would otherwise occur. A website supporting the project pitches it as “a solution to Florida’s projected water shortages” by delivering “100 million gallons of water per day.”

A project overview by New York-based water engineering solutions company Hazen, which said it would lead the “public private partnership … from the feasibility stage through design and permitting,” said the project’s total cost would be $600 million.

The St. Johns River Water Management District didn’t ask for the money, and many observers raised concerns about the quality of the water that would be transported up from South Florida and its impact.

Lawmakers in 2007 prohibited farmers around the Everglades, Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee from accepting sewage sludge from South Florida to use as fertilizer. Local governments from South Florida have since sent their wastewater byproduct north to farmlands around the St. Johns River. In recent years, the state has issued nearly yearly warnings about toxic algal blooms in the water body.

“This is why the idea of funneling in even MORE pollution to fuel those blooms is such a horrific thought for anyone … who cares about the St. Johns,” journalist and author Craig Pittman wrote in the Florida Phoenix last May.

Rebecca Vecera of St. Johns Riverkeeper called the reservoir plan “salt in the wounds of the damage that resulted from Florida’s failed sewage sludge policy, consequently allowing South Florida to dump 100,000 tons of its concentrated sewage on ranchlands in our river’s headwaters annually.”

In its (unfulfilled) call for DeSantis to veto the appropriation last year, the Florida Springs Council argued, “it should not be included in the budget nor should it be sold as a land conservation project because the land has no conservation value.”

“It continues the disastrous trend of ‘solving’ South Florida’s pollution problems by moving the pollution into Central and North Florida,” the organization said.

Last year, then-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo — a land use and real estate lawyer — expressed support for the funding, with Senate spokesperson Katie Betta telling POLITICO that the lawmaker believed it was “a unique opportunity to purchase thousands of acres at the headwaters of the St. Johns River.”

So did then-House Speaker Paul Renner, who described the project in an email to Pittman as “a worthy investment to plan for water needs decades from now.”

The state’s Department of Environmental Protection also concurred with Evan Properties that future water demands in Central Florida necessitate the creation of new ways to provide or store it in the region.

While not speaking directly to the Grove Land Reservoir funds being reverted, Sen. Jason Brodeur, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government, told POLITICO the change came amid “a whole bunch of movement as part of negotiations to make sure we are meeting our priorities however we can.”