DeBary Water Hardness & Quality Report (2026)

DeBary, Florida, in Volusia County — a Volusia County city on the St. Johns River north of Orlando in the Deltona metropolitan area, adjacent to Orange City and Deltona — receives its municipal water from the City of DeBary Water Utilities or Volusia County Water, which draws from the Upper Floridan Aquifer through production wells in the western Volusia County corridor.

The very hard 255.5 mg/L hardness and high TDS of 781.1 mg/L are among the highest Floridan Aquifer readings in central Florida — substantially harder than the Pensacola-area Floridan (153-157 mg/L) and the northeast Florida Floridan (141-174 mg/L). The Floridan Aquifer System in Volusia County accesses very deep intervals of the Eocene Avon Park Formation (dolomite, with gypsite and evaporite zones) — the same formation but at significantly greater depth and pressure than the shallower Panhandle equivalents. The deep western Volusia-Orange County Floridan has longer groundwater residence times and greater evaporite dissolution (gypsum-anhydrite producing high sulfate and calcium), producing the extreme TDS (781 mg/L) that exceeds even the hard Panhandle Floridan supplies.

At 255.5 mg/L with TDS 781 mg/L, DeBary's water is very hard. A whole-house water softener is strongly recommended, and kitchen reverse osmosis filtration is advised given the high TDS. The PFAS level of 10.6 ppt is very high and warrants a certified reverse osmosis drinking water filter — Naval Training Center Orlando (former — now redeveloped, but the St. Johns River corridor military legacy), Sanford Naval Air Station (former — now Sanford Orlando International Airport), and the Orlando-Volusia defense corridor contribute to DeBary's elevated PFAS readings.