The South District Underground Injection Control Program (UIC) provides regulatory oversight via permitting and compliance/enforcement activities of the following types of injection well facilities within the District boundaries:

Class 1 Municipal and Industrial Wastewater Disposal well systems

Class V Aquifer Storage and Recovery well systems

Class V Domestic and Industrial Wastewater disposal well systems within the Florida Keys and other barrier island communities along the southern and southwestern Florida coastline.

Class V well systems that service swimming pool drainage systems and geothermal heating and cooling systems for larger residential and commercial properties.

The District's Class 1 Deep Injection Well (DIW) program area services facilities that dispose of domestic wastewater effluent by providing a consistently available, highly efficient, disposal systems during critical periods of wet weather thus preventing discharge of such  effluents to sensitive area surface waters.  The District's Class 1 deep well program services Solid Waste Program area landfills by providing access to efficient and effective leachate disposal systems via our permitting and compliance oversight.

The Class 1 DIW program also services water production facilities that utilize reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technology to produce high quality potable water from groundwaters that are typically of poor quality due to mineral content concentration.  The DIW program provides an efficient, effective, and consistently available disposal methodology for the concentrate wastestreams generated by these RO facilities by allowing access to aquifers and formations that are similar in nature to the saline quality of the RO concentrate wastestream thus avoiding impacts to the environment.

Our Class V, Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR), program area provides oversight of systems designed to inject, store and retrieve water from underground rock formations and aquifer systems in an efficient and effective manner.  The South District has two types of ASR systems in use:

ASR systems operating within aquifers and formation containing the Underground Source of Drinking Water (USDW) and systems operating within aquifers and rock formations that are underneath the USDW.  Systems within the USDW typically store, during the wet seasons, while supply is plentiful, partially-treated surface waters and potable water for reuse as potable water and irrigation water supplies during the dry season when water supplies are at critically low levels.  This type of water management practice reduces impacts to valuable fresh water aquifer systems.

Non-USDW ASR systems typically operate using non-potable water sources such as partially treated stormwater runoff, excess surface waters, and highly treated reclaimed water from domestic wastewater facilities as the source of water for storage and retrieval.  These non-USDW systems allow a net benefit to be realized from water sources that would ordinarily be lost to tide and provide no net benefits.  Waters retrieved from these ASRs is typically only used for irrigation purposes, yet provide huge benefits to the serviced populations by decreasing consumption of water produced for potable purposes thus conserving resources and providing tremendous savings by reducing or eliminating the need for additional infrastructure and potable water treatment facility expansions.

The Class V well program area services area residents and commercial enterprises by providing access to injection well systems that allow for effective and efficient handling of excess swimming pool waters and access to geothermal heating and cooling resources that would otherwise be unavailable. 

The South District UIC program is staffed with 1.5 Full Time Equivalent positions and 1 OPS position handling approximately 76 Class 1 systems located at 58 different water and wastewater facilities, 15 Major Class V ASR facilities, and approximately 12 smaller Class V RO concentrate disposal systems located on Southwestern Florida barrier islands and within the Florida Keys.  The Class V wastewater disposal systems within the Florida Keys number approximately 250 with each facility typically having a minimum of 2 wells in operation at each facility.  The Class V stormwater drainage well program within the Florida Keys provides well permitting for approximately 1250 systems and is expanding to include large municipal stormwater utility drainage systems on a large scale basis.

 The South District UIC program provides technical support on an as-needed basis to the Oil and Gas Section with respect to well construction and geophysical logging results.  The UIC program area is also responsible for the permitting and inspection of the district’s 219 wastewater facilities with groundwater monitoring well plans and provides backup technical support to the solid waste section with respect to operation of landfill leachate injection systems.