Utilities in Sebastian, Florida

In Sebastian, Indian River County supplies water and sewer, FPL supplies electricity, WM collects garbage under a city contract, and the City of Sebastian runs only the stormwater system.

The City of Sebastian does not run a water plant: the county's Department of Utility Services provides water, wastewater and reuse services to a major portion of the county, including the City of Sebastian (Indian River County Utilities). Each line in the table below is a separate account or a separate charge, and two of them reach Sebastian owners on the property tax bill rather than as a monthly statement.

The Indian River County Tax Collector lists both a Sebastian Stormwater Services Assessment and a Sebastian Waste Collection Assessment among the non-ad valorem charges on county tax bills, each with the city's number, (772) 581-0111 (Indian River County Tax Collector). A Sebastian homeowner with a county water account therefore pays the city's two utility charges through the annual tax bill.

Water and sewer in Sebastian come from the Indian River County Department of Utility Services, which keeps a Sebastian customer office at Sebastian Corners Plaza, 1921 US Highway 1.

The Sebastian Corners Plaza office is open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and the county's utility line for new service, transfers and cancellations is (772) 770-5300 (Indian River County Utilities). The county page states that residents outside its system are served by private wells and septic tanks, the City of Vero Beach Utilities or the City of Fellsmere Utilities. Inside Sebastian city limits, a property is on the county system or on its own well and septic tank.

The county utility that serves Sebastian is paid for by its customers. Its rate study site states that operations and capital improvements are funded exclusively through user fees, not through taxes, and that rate increases took effect January 1, 2025, with a second increase on October 1, 2025 (IRCDUS rate study). The same site states the department provides water service to 56,000 retail customers and collects wastewater from 34,000 retail service connections, which shows how many more homes in the service area have county water than county sewer.

Sebastian's tap water comes from groundwater. During the 2023 debate over a 2,000 acre annexation west of Sebastian, county staff described 7 wells at each water treatment plant, 14 wells in all for the Sebastian area and the rest of the county system, permitted for about 12.8 million gallons per day by the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (Sebastian Daily, February 2023).

Sebastian homes not yet on county lines still use private wells and septic tanks, and Indian River County is extending sewer into North Sebastian and the riverfront redevelopment area to change that.

The county's Septic-to-Sewer Program lists North Sebastian Phase 3, which covers 168 homes near the Indian River Lagoon on roads surrounding the North Sebastian community; as of October 11, 2026 its status is engineering and design underway, after a community meeting on June 17, 2026 (Indian River County Septic-to-Sewer Program). The program's Sewer Connection Assistance Program offers grant-funded help of up to $15,000 per property for eligible residents where sewer is already available. The same county program lists neighboring projects at Wabasso Island, where it is soliciting a design-build team, and at Hobart Landing, about 53 homes with 75 percent of the cost funded through an FDEP grant, so North Sebastian Phase 3 is one of four active projects the county program lists across Indian River County.

Closer to the river, the City of Sebastian and Indian River County broke ground on September 10, 2025 on sewer line extensions inside the Sebastian Community Redevelopment Area, so that every parcel in the CRA can connect, with a Florida Department of Environmental Protection grant to help owners abandon septic tanks (Indian River Guardian). Once the county confirms that sewer reaches a Sebastian home, the Sebastian owner receives a letter allowing 365 days to connect, and WQCS reported in August 2026 that gravity connections cost roughly $7,000 to $15,000 while low-pressure connections run $15,000 to $25,000 (WQCS).

FPL is the electric utility for Sebastian, and WM picks up Sebastian garbage, yard waste and bulk items once a week under the city's universal curbside service.

FPL, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, serves more than 6 million customer accounts statewide (FPL). In Sebastian, FPL told the City Council in June 2021 that it had more than 76 miles of power lines in the city, 40 percent already underground, and that its Storm Secure Underground Program would approach 143 neighborhood lines with more than 6,300 customers (Sebastian Daily, June 2021). FPL said the main lines on concrete poles, such as the ones it had recently installed along CR 512 (Sebastian Boulevard), would stay overhead, and that the program targets neighborhood lines on wooden poles. FPL made that presentation at a June 2021 meeting of the Sebastian City Council.

Universal curbside collection by WM became mandatory for all City of Sebastian residences on July 1, 2023, with one collection a week for garbage, yard waste and bulk waste and a 96-gallon garbage cart for each home (City of Sebastian). WM billed Sebastian residents quarterly through September 2024, and the City of Sebastian took over invoicing on October 1, 2024. Recycling follows the county program: Indian River County told Sebastian residents to expect a new recycling cart and possibly a new collection day effective October 1, 2025 (Indian River County Solid Waste Disposal District).

The Sebastian stormwater fee, $14 a month since the City Council raised it from $10 in 2024, pays the city Stormwater Utility that keeps the city's swales, ditches and canals draining.

The City of Sebastian Stormwater Utility operates the collection and treatment system of swales, ditches, culverts, catch basins, baffle boxes and the 8.15 mile Elkcam Canal/Collier Creek Canal (City of Sebastian Stormwater). Owners still mow and clean their own front yard swale and driveway culvert, while city crews clean every city baffle box quarterly (City of Sebastian FAQ).

The fee has climbed with the system's age. Sebastian Daily reported that the fee was $5 a month in 2001 and $10 in 2018, and that the increase to $14 followed a Stormwater Master Plan by Arcadis, which put the cost of fixing the whole system at about $193 million (Sebastian Daily, September 2024). Mayor Ed Dodd said at the time that the increase would add five employees to the stormwater team. The Sebastian City Council adopted the new rate after the master plan review, and the city's stormwater page now posts progress on named drainage jobs, including the Stonecrop project, the Riviera and Gardenia project and the Tulip Drainage Improvement Project, alongside a form to apply for a stormwater utility fee credit.

Last verified: October 11, 2026, on the City of Sebastian and Indian River County websites.