Brevard reuse system
Irrigation on reclaimed water, connected and set up properly
We set up reclaimed water irrigation for Brevard County residents. Customers on reuse save approximately 2,000 gallons of potable water a month once they are connected to the city system.
Chapter 01
What changes when a property comes off potable water
Reclaimed water is treated wastewater that the county puts back into the ground through irrigation rather than discharging. For a property owner the practical change is that the lawn, the beds and any ponds or fountains stop being fed from the same supply as the kitchen tap. The figure we quote is approximately 2,000 gallons of potable water saved per month, per property, once the connection is made.
The wider effect is the one the county cares about. Every property on reuse is demand taken off potable and ground water, and it is positive aquifer recharge rather than a straight withdrawal. On a barrier island county with a lagoon on one side and a river on the other, that is not an abstract argument.
The purple pipe in the photograph above is the giveaway. Reclaimed lines are colour coded lilac by convention so nobody ever mistakes one for a drinking water line, and the same convention runs through the risers, the valve boxes and the shutoffs.
A reclaimed water service opened at the edge of a mown lawn, the lilac purple riser and shutoff visible in the meter box
What reclaimed water can and cannot feed
It irrigates plants, flowers and grass, and it feeds fountains and ponds. Those are the uses, and between them they cover almost everything an irrigation system on a residential or commercial property is actually asked to do.
There is a side effect worth knowing about before you budget the rest of the year's grounds care: reclaimed water is not sterile, and properties on reuse generally need less fertilizer than they did before. It is not a substitute for a feeding programme, but it does change the amount.
What it is not is a drinking water supply, a hose bib source, or something to be cross connected to the potable side of the property under any circumstances. That is precisely why this work goes through the city water department and why the plumbing is kept visibly separate.
Chapter 03
Why we go through the water department every time
We work with and are referred by city departments, and on reuse connections that relationship is the job rather than a credential to mention. The county decides where the reuse line runs, what the connection looks like and what has to be demonstrated before a property goes on it. A contractor who treats that as paperwork is a contractor who will eventually hand a homeowner a system that has to be dug up.
Hartmann Irrigation has been doing this out of Merritt Island since 1980 and is fully licensed and insured, IR 52. Practically, that means the connection, the backflow arrangement and the separation between reclaimed and potable are done to the standard the department expects, first time.
If the property already has an irrigation system in the ground, most of it usually stays. The change is upstream of the zones, and existing sprinkler or drip zones are generally fed from the new supply without being rebuilt. Call the office on (321) 454-3314 and we will come and look at what is already there.
Hartmann Irrigation, Merritt Island since 1980. Licensed and insured, IR 52. Call (321) 454-3314.