Lake County, FL Water Use Rules: Recycled Water Rules (2026)

Lake County's landscape irrigation ordinance, adopted under Ordinance No. 2014-21 and codified at Chapter 21, Article III, treats reclaimed and recycled water differently from the potable and well water that the standard watering-day schedule targets. Section 21-34(7) allows irrigation from a reclaimed water system at any time of day, on any day of the week, and defines a qualifying system as one whose primary source is reclaimed water, even if another source supplements it during peak demand. Section 21-34(8) extends the same anytime allowance to recycled water drawn from wet detention treatment ponds, but only if the pond is not artificially topped off from groundwater, off-site surface water, or a public water supply; a pond that receives outside augmentation loses the exemption and falls back under the § 21-33 schedule limiting residential addresses to one or two assigned days a week.

The article's other exceptions run alongside this one: micro-spray, drip, and bubbler systems, hand-held hoses with automatic shutoff nozzles, watering-in of chemicals within 24 hours of application, and new landscape establishment during its first 60 days are all separately exempted under § 21-34. All of these rules apply only within the unincorporated county inside the boundaries of the St. Johns River Water Management District, defined as the 'District' at § 21-32, and are enforced by the Lake County Code Enforcement Division under the penalty structure at § 21-39.