South Florida Water Management District

The district's "Who We Are" page describes it as "a regional governmental agency that manages the water resources in the southern half of the state, covering 16 counties from Orlando to the Florida Keys." The same page says it was created in 1949, serves about 9 million residents, and is responsible for flood control, water supply, water quality and natural systems.

Florida has five water management districts. The district's page also prints the county list of one of the others, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, and the two lists together settle which district covers Naples, Marco Island, Estero and Bonita Springs.

Naples and Marco Island are cities the Collier County Tax Collector names inside its county. Estero and Bonita Springs are in Lee: Bonita Springs Utilities gives its service area as the City of Bonita Springs, the Village of Estero and unincorporated south Lee. All four therefore sit inside the South Florida district, and none inside the Southwest district.

Two of the district's rule chapters reach a Naples property, and the district itself stresses that they are different kinds of rule.

The first is Chapter 40E-24, the year-round landscape watering restrictions. The district's landscape irrigation page calls it mandatory, year-round and permanent, and it is about irrigating lawns and landscape; the same page notes that hand watering is allowed at any time with a self-canceling nozzle. It does not address pressure cleaning.

The second is Chapter 40E-21, which the rule itself describes as "the District's water shortage plan required under Section 373.246(1), F.S." It reaches every water user, permit-exempt users included, other than users relying solely on treated effluent or seawater, but its phase restrictions wait for a declaration. The district's page calls a water shortage "a temporary declaration" and says that while it lasts it supersedes the year-round rule and any local landscape watering ordinance; the district names a second, typically more limiting, kind of declaration as well. How a declaration and its order work, and the four levels a shortage can reach, are defined under water shortage phase, and the roof wash side of a warning has its own answer, does a water shortage warning restrict roof cleaning.

The district does not enforce alone. Rule 40E-21.421 authorizes and encourages local enforcement, by county and municipal ordinance, of the chapter and of any order under it. Collier County 311's summary of the county's standing water rule, for its part, sends irrigation questions to county customer service or to the district's Water Shortage Watch. Which local rule covers a wash in each of the four places is set out in which water rules cover exterior cleaning in Naples, Marco Island, Estero and Bonita Springs, and how the district's rules sit beside the county's irrigation days is laid out in the Naples water calendar.

The chapter's mobile equipment washing line, written for vehicles and boats, sends that water over a pervious surface during a declared shortage. The rules on what may run into a storm drain or a swale are in the county's and the City of Naples' pollution codes.