- February 18, 2026
A proposal to enact a county ordinance and place a charter amendment on the 2026 ballot to ban "toilet to tap" went down the drain on Tuesday, Feb. 17, as Volusia County Council members voted 4-3 against both measures.
Earlier this month, the County Council directed staff to draft a charter amendment and ordinance to prohibit recycling blackwater — wastewater from toilets — into drinking water and from being injected into the aquifer, within the county's jurisdiction. This came after a local political committee, Let Volusia Vote, resurfaced the "toilet to tap" issue; In 2018, the City of Daytona Beach was exploring a wastewater drinking water pilot program, which it later abandoned.
County Council Chair Jeff Brower has been vocal in his opposition to recycling blackwater for drinking water, and pushed for an initiative to ban it in 2022, though he did not find support in fellow council members at the time. While two councilmen — Troy Kent and Don Dempsey — supported both an ordinance and placing a charter amendment on the ballot, Brower needed at least two more councilmen to want to ban "toilet to tap" for a charter amendment. Placing a charter amendment on the ballot requires a majority vote of at least five council members.
"This is the epitome of local control because it would not be any of us preventing this," Brower said of the charter amendment. "It's not us saying you can't do this. It's allowing the people that are most affected, the people that drink the water in unincorporated Volusia utility areas — they get to vote on, 'Do they want this in their water system anytime in the future?'"
But the majority of the council expressed that blackwater reuse is not a local issue. The county doesn't have current or future plans to recycle wastewater into drinking water.
"Volusia has zero plans to do this," Councilman David Santiago said. "Don't be fooled by what you're seeing in social media that that's what we're doing. It is a con game as it pertains to Volusia County."
A toilet to tap ban, Santiago said, is a "county solution looking for a county problem." Additionally, the county only controls 7% of total utilities in Volusia; municipalities control the majority. A charter amendment that only pertains to 7% of users would be a "disservice" to the county residents, some of whom might believe this would impact their city utilities.
"You walk up to the average Joe and you say, 'Do you want to drink poopy water?' Of course, they're going to tell you, no," Councilman David Santiago said. "That's a pretty easy statement to come up here to the dais and say, 'People don't like this.'"
County Councilman Jake Johansson said toilet to tap is "kind of icky." The bottom line is that the county and its cities all want clean water to drink and to protect the aquifer, he said. But, he didn't want to restrict future councils and said the idea of asking Legislature to help them restrict blackwater reuse went against Home Rule principles.
"No pun intended, but this idea might be a little more palatable in 40 years," Johansson said.
Dempsey agreed with that — that science 40 years from now may have improved or the need for water might be greater. That's why he was in favor of an ordinance that could be changed in the future.
"I think the reason for passing this is because we would err on the side of no," Dempsey said. "I think we should err on the side of not trusting the science, because once we put this into the aquifer, who knows what's going to happen now."
While Kent said he didn't see a water shortage yet, he explained he had no issue putting it before the voters to decide. Other communities are considering it.
"We've heard about other local counties," Kent said. "We've heard about Deltona — keeps being brought up. So the discussion is there... What's the harm in not only passing the amendment, but allowing people to vote on it?"
Deltona has pulled two permits for potable reuse projects, one of which is for Aquifer Storage and Recovery, which allows for injecting surface water or treated stormwater or wastewater into the aquifer. The water would be treated to a drinking water standard. The other permit would allow them to test the feasibility of constructing an injection well where they would pull surface water from the St. John's River and treat it to a drinking water standard before injecting it into the aquifer.
According to county staff, Deltona is only proceeding with the latter permit.
Deltona was at the center of an argument on the dais between Santiago — who represents District 5 which includes the city — and Brower.
Santiago said Brower has made multiple "misstatements" that fail to mention that the city is planning to treat the water to a drinking standard before it goes into the aquifer.
In his closing comments, Brower defended his stance.
"I've been very careful that everything I said I have verification for," Brower said. "To say that it's not here is absolutely false."
He said he will bring the issue back — with the next council and the next one after that.
Editor's note: A previous version of this article stated Brower would need at least one more councilman seeking to ban toilet to tap for a charter amendment; this was incorrect. He needed two.
