DEP has the primary role of regulating public water systems in Florida. A public
water system is defined as one that provides water to 25 or more people for at least
60 days each year or serves 15 or more service connections. These public water
systems may be publicly or privately owned and operated.
At this time there are about 6,500 public water systems, and they are divided into
three categories:
Community - Serves at least 15 service connections used by year-round
residents or regularly serves at least 25 year-round residents. This group
provides water to residences and includes a range of sizes from small mobile
home courts to large city utilities.
Transient Non-Community - serves at least twenty-five people or fifteen
connections, but the population is characterized as flow-through traffic,
such as with stores, RV parks, hotels or churches that are open at least 60
days a year.
Non-Transient Non-Community - Provides water to the same 25 individuals for
six months or more each year. These systems include schools, factories or
large businesses with their own drinking water supplies.
Federal drinking water standards require community systems and all non- transient
non-community systems to provide DEP with the results of a full water quality
analysis once every three years for chemical and radiological contaminants and
monthly for biological contaminants. An additional monitoring requirement for public
drinking water systems is contained within the Total Coliform (bacteriological)
Rule. Community and non-transient non-community systems are required to monitor
monthly, while transient non-community systems are required to test every three
months.
