The St. Johns River Water Management District is committed to providing requested records as quickly and efficiently as possible. To help us provide you the most accurate and timely response, please carefully identify the information that you need. Very broad or non-specific requests can take longer to fulfill and may become costly to the requestor. Please refer to our FAQs for helpful information regarding requests.
Before filling out the request form, please remember that many district records, including consumptive use permit (CUP) and environmental resource permit (ERP) records are searchable on the district’s website.
- Locate CUP and ERP records by using the search tool on the ePermit page.
- Minutes and Recorded videos from the Governing Board meetings are available on the Governing Board meeting calendar page.
If you need further assistance, please contact the District Clerk’s office at clerk@sjrwmd.com or call 386-329-4570. When contacting the district for a public record, help us to respond to your request in a timely manner by providing, a way to contact you , such as an email address, mailing address or telephone number, in case we have any questions. Staff will also need to know which records you are requesting.
All confidential information will be redacted from copies of public records in compliance with Florida Statute 119.07. All costs incurred will be based on extensive staff time (more than 30 minutes).
Under Florida law, email addresses are public records. If you do not want your email address released in response to a public records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.
Frequently asked questions
The tradition began in the early 1900s when Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes was passed. This is the public records law chapter and provides that any records made or received by any public agency in the course of its official business are available for inspection, unless specifically exempted by the Florida Legislature. Florida expanded this access in 1967 with the passage of the Government in the Sunshine Law. This law establishes a basic right of access to most meetings of boards, commissions and other governing bodies of the state and local governmental agencies or authorities.
Public records are defined as “all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recordings, data processing software, or other material, regardless of the physical form, characteristics, or means of transmission, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business of the agency.
Public records requests can be submitted by our online request form, by emailing clerk@sjrwmd.com, or by calling the District Clerk’s office at 386-329-4127. Requestors are not required to provide their identity or purpose for seeking the records.
By law, the district may charge the following fees for Inspection of and copying public records:
- Standard single-sided letter/legal black and white copies — .15 cents per page
- Standard double-sided letter/legal black and white copies — .20 cents per page
- Certified Copies — $1.00 per copy
Many records are provided at no costs to the requestor. Charges may be assessed for extensive use of labor, systems, material, supplies and other resources used to provide access to and copies of public records. District policy is to charge when staff are required to spend more than 30 minutes (continuous or cumulative) on activities related to fulfilling a records request.
When there will be charges, the person requesting the records will be contacted and provided an estimate of costs. Records will not be released until all charges are paid in full.
There is no charge for providing records when a request is less than 30 minutes of staff time to complete and no significant resources are extended.
Many easily accessible records are already available online at no charge through the district’s website. The district will continue to add resources to its website to assist the public whenever possible.
You can reduce your costs by being as specific as possible about the records you are looking for and by using keywords instead of open-ended terms such as “all documents or emails.” Similarly, narrowing a request to certain individuals or a date range can greatly reduce the use of extensive labor. District staff will work with requestors to help narrow searches that seem overly broad in scope. Feel free to contact the District Clerk’s office if we can assist you with refining your request.
Florida law states that an agency must respond within the “limited reasonable time” it takes an agency to retrieve and record the record, and delete those portions of the record that are exempt. The length of time it takes this agency to provide the records varies somewhat with the volume of the request, but the district is committed to providing requested records as quickly and efficiently as possible.
The Government in the Sunshine Law provides the right to access, inspect and copy existing public records in the format they are used by the agency where they are stored. Agencies are not required to re-format data, create new records or write new reports to accommodate a request for information. Occasionally, some responses are too large to be sent by email. In those instances, the district uses Box.com to share information. Box.com is a secure file transfer protocol site in the cloud for record/file sharing, storage and collaboration. When Information is shared through Box.com, it is available for five business days from the date they are posted.
Public records request form
You may also request public records through the District Clerk at:
District Clerk
St. Johns River Water Management District
4049 Reid Street
Palatka, FL 32177
386-329-4127