Our Water sources

Our raw water for the Palm Bay Utility Department (PBUD) Water Treatment Plant (WTP) is primarily derived from a shallow aquifer well field located east of I-95 and west of the WTP. The shallow aquifer well field was originally developed in the immediate vicinity of the WTP site and development of the well field has proceeded to the south and west of the WTP site. The total installed raw water pumping capacity is approximately 5,000 gallons per minute or 7.2 million gallons per day. The actual quantity of water that can be withdrawn on a firm reliable safe yield basis is estimated to be approximately 6.0 million gallons per day on a maximum day basis.

Raw water is also supplied to the treatment plant by a single Floridian aquifer well located southwest of the WTP into and north of the Sandy Pines subdivision as shown above. The well is constructed to a total depth of approximately 450 feet. This well has a pumping capacity of 0.7 million gallons per day and is used for blending purposes to satisfy peak demands in combination with the shallow water supply wells.

A Reverse Osmosis (RO) water treatment plant was put on-line at the start of 2001. The raw water for this plant comes from two 800 foot deep (Floridian aquifer) wells that are located at the water treatment plant site. The water from this RO plant combined with the shallow well field system helps meet the daily supply demands.
Based on the maximum daily flow projections, the raw water supply and treatment capacity that currently exists may be exceeded sometime before the year 2007. Therefore, PBUD will be required to construct a second treatment plant with a new raw water supply source. This second raw water supply and transmission system should be designed to be upgradeable, paced with the maximum day demands on the system, to meet the build out maximum day demand with the 10-12 million gallons per day capacity for the first system. [For More Information on Aquifers]

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