Air and Water Quality

At JEA we’re proud to say we work harder and smarter to protect the environment. Our generating plants employ the newest technologies to produce cleaner energy. Our Buckman Wastewater Treatment Facility exceeds EPA requirements for discharge into the river and our scientists analyze more than 45,000 water samples a year to ensure safe drinking water.

Air Quality at Our Electric Generating Plants 

Northside Generating Station (NGS)
From 1994-1995, JEA reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide, NOx and particulate matter from the Northside Generating Station by more than 10 percent while increasing power output by about 2.5 percent. This was accomplished by converting Units 1 and 2 to state-of-the art solid fuel CFBs with high performing particulate matter sulfide dioxide emission and NOx control technology. This increased JEA’s fuel versatility while helping to maintain JEA electric rates among the lowest in the Southeast.

Natural Gas-Fired Combustion Turbine Technology
Over the last decade, JEA installed four new state-of-the-art natural gas-fired combustion turbines, and converted two of these to combined cycle operation to capture waste heat and produce additional capacity. These state-of-the-art combustion turbines allowed JEA to permanently retire uncontrolled old technology residual (#6) oil-burning units at the Kennedy and Southside Generating Stations. Two more turbines were recently installed at the newly operational Greenland Energy Center.

Green Power
JEA entered into a voluntary agreement with the local chapters of the Sierra Club and American Lung Association to achieve 7.5 percent clean power capacity by 2015. To date, JEA has achieved 95 megaWatts of clean power capacity. This includes solar photovoltaic and thermal, wind, landfill gas, digester biogas, biomass and a fogging system installed on existing combustion turbines to increase their efficiency.

Surface Water Quality

After taking over the water and sewer facilities for the City of Jacksonville, JEA replaced the old technology sludge incinerators at the Buckman Street Water Treatment Facility with a state-of-the-art bio solids facility. Some features of the facility include:

• A marketable “beneficial reuse” organic slow-release fertilizer named Green Edge is produced instead of sending material to landfills.
• A reduction in landfill applications resulted in not only saving landfill space, but also significant savings in tipping and transportation fees.
• Biogas generated in the process is beneficially used for biosolids drying and to to generate electricity and/or to heat the digesters.
• Conversion to a reuse facility resulted in a reduction in groundwater withdrawal from the Floridan aquifer of 240 million gallons per year, helping to conserve this resource.

Your Drinking Water

We collect and analyze 45,000 water samples throughout our service area during the year to ensure we’re providing our community with safe, clean drinking water.

Federal and state regulations require drinking water utilities to maintain an adequate chlorine residual in treated water to ensure the water is free of pathogens, which are disease-producing agents. The federal government also requires that all utilities report annually to their customers about the content and quality of their water.

Our community is very fortunate that its water source is the Floridan aquifer. The water is clean and fresh, and requires minimal treatment. Most of the elements present in our drinking water occur naturally in the aquifer at very low levels. Lead and copper found in drinking water occur from contact with household plumbing fixtures and do not come from the JEA system. 
Learn more about JEA's water supply