By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

Fayette County's water supply meets or exceeds all the federal standards for quality.

That's not news to water system officials, who monitor the quality of the water supply and regularly report findings to state and federal agencies, but now the information is packaged and presented to water customers, a new federal requirement.

If you haven't received your customer confidence report yet, you should soon. The four-page report is being sent out with water bills, and hand-delivered to apartments where customers aren't billed individually.

A requirement of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the report details all the sources of local drinking water and lists the levels of contaminants in the water.

The news is good, said Water System director Tony Parrott. “We've complied with [all the federal standards] and had no problems. But then, we're not supposed to have problems,” he said.

All drinking water may reasonably be expected to contain small amounts of some substances like copper, lead and nitrates, according to the report. The EPA prescribes regulations that limit the amounts of those substances in public water systems.

In Fayette, for example, the level of lead detected in testing local water is 3.4 parts per billion, whereas federal standards allow up to 15 ppb. Coliform bacteria tested at 2 percent, less than half of the 5 percent allowed.

The report also details the sources of water as Lake Kedron, Lake Peachtree, Lake Horton, Line Creek, Starr's Mill pond and the Flint River, in addition to purchases from the cities of Atlanta and Fayetteville.

Methods used to treat the water also are revealed.

Federal agencies already have all that information, said Parrott. “They just want to make sure we tell our customers,” he said.