What's in our water, Atlanta?

Water Quality in the Suburbs

These are two things My Georgia Plumber is passionate about – knowing what is in our water and what is in our food.

Drinking Water Quality by State - except Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kansas - Why?
While recently researching Atlanta water quality for our new product launch (water filtration and purification systems) I was curious as to how Atlanta's water quality ranked within Georgia as well as against other states.  Time and time again I found the following statement, “Cities in Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia provided insufficient data to be included in EWG's database.” So they could not be included in the ranking.  For those who are not aware, EWG stands for Environmental Working Group.  According to their website EWG is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting human health and the environment.

Back in 2009 EWG compiled a report from 45 states and over 48,0000 communities testing for 316 contaminants over a span of 5 years.  Among the contaminants were 202 chemicals that are not subject to government regulation or safety standards for drinking water (these would be chemicals that are not supposed to be in our drinking supply and therefore not regulated, such as cleaning products and medications.)  I was quite shocked to find that Georgia was among the 5 states that did not participate.

2003 Georgia Drinking Water was Graded only as Fair

Further research found that back in June of 2003 the NRDC (National Resource Defense Counsel) was able to evaluate Georgia's drinking water and issued a not so favorable report - grading Atlanta only as "fair".  For those interested, you can view the NRDC's 2003 "What's on Tap?" report by clicking the link.

What's in our water Atlanta?  We want to know!

Additional research was unable to turn up any updated reports or rankings and only produced individual water municipalities required annual EPA reports.  For those who are unaware, our city water supplies are tested only once a year as required by the EPA.  These standard tests only look for 9 designated contaminates annually.  It also requires testing for lead and copper every 3 years.  We understand that this is what is required by the EPA for water that is safe for human consumption but it is really enough? 

Personally for my family it is not.  As a mother of four, I care what goes into my families bodies and we feel that we have a right to know what is our drinking water.  Over the next few months we will be sending out water samples each of the water providers below to an independent lab for review.  We will then post the results here to be compared to their most recent required Water Quality Report.  I’d like to know just how Atlanta area neighborhoods rank.  Wouldn’t you?

Be sure to bookmark this page and visit often to see if your area's results have been received.  Results will be reported in our quarterly newsletter. You can sign up for here.

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