SCU Water Information Portal

  1. St. Cloud Water Update
  2. Water Quality
  3. Polisher
  4. Flushing Locations
  5. MIEX Resin

Welcome to the St. Cloud Utilities Customer Service Water Information Portal. The purpose of this page is to keep residents and customers of the Utility System informed on a variety of topics of concern including water quality and discoloration, updates on the utility projects and ongoing efforts to address water concerns. 

Water Quality

The City of St. Cloud Environmental Utility department takes drinking water samples regularly for testing by a third-party laboratory to ensure that the drinking water meets all regulatory requirements and is safe to drink.  The results of these samples are reported to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) which is responsible to the Environmental Protection Agency for administration of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act for the State of Florida.  The FDEP requires that all municipal water systems sample and test for a number of Organic and Inorganic Chemicals, Radionuclides, Disinfection By-products, and Bacteria. In all, the City tests for 80 different compounds, disinfection by-products 4 times a year, 70 bacteriological samples every month. To date the City water system is incompliance with all water quality parameters.  


To learn more about the City of St. Cloud’s drinking water quality, recent testing results, and the 2018 Water Quality Report, click here.


Water Treatment Plant No. 4 Polishing Filter Replacement Project

The City of St. Cloud’s Water Treatment Plant No. 4 utilizes two Polishing Filters to catch and remove resin and other fine particles (the main cause of water discoloration) after primary treatment.  The original Polishing Filters structurally failed and lost operational capacity.  In 2018, the City implemented a project to replace the failed polishers. The project’s main objective is to replace the two existing aluminum Polishing Filters with stainless steel Polishing Filters.  The project also includes replacement of valves and new instrumentation. Completion of the project is anticipated soon. 


*UPDATE as of January 14, 2020

In an effort to resolve ongoing issues associated with the City’s water filtering system, the Utilities Department will soon be implementing an innovative new technology with the capability to effectively and efficiently clean city water lines.    

Known as “ice pigging,” the process injects an ice slurry into a water line through a city fire hydrant, pushing the slurry through the line only to exit through a different fire hydrant. This process has the potential to fully clean a water line. St. Cloud learned about and investigated ice pigging after it was used successfully by neighboring Orange County Utilities.

This new step comes after installation last December of two new polishing filters at Water Treatment Plan No. 4. The filters went online in December and are working properly and creating clean water. Turbidity, clarity of the finished water, has improved significantly with the new polishers. Meanwhile, filter optimization and backwashing sequences continue as part of the process. However, resin particles that were lost to the system from the previous failed polishers remain in the system and continue to impact residents in their homes.

Environmental Utilities has completed two cycles of unidirectional flushing through the areas most impacted by discolored water and sediment. While this process has shown positive results in removing large amounts of sediment and discoloration, it has not significantly improved the overall water quality in the affected areas. The City is evaluating the unidirectional flushing process to improve outcomes from this process.

The City Council approved $407,000 for the ice pigging initiative with monies in the utilities budget; residents will see no rate changes as a result of this issue. The ice pigging, which is expected to begin in early February and take about five weeks, will target the areas affected most by this issue, which equates to about 27.5 miles of water line. 

As stated earlier, the City is keenly aware of the inconvenience and unpleasant nature of this issue. Our intent is that this high technology process will substantially improve the water quality and significantly reduce the incidents of discolored water. .