After years of taking heat from customers for the quality of drinking water it provides, the Piedmont Water Company was expected this week to start operating its new water treatment plant. The facility will pull up to two million gallons of surface water from Lake Oconee daily and distribute it to its residential and business customers in what is known as the Reynolds Water System. The 28 wells that have supplied groundwater to the system for decades will no longer be used.
Piedmont Water notified its customers via telephone last week about plans to put the treatment plant in service on Sept. 6 and start flushing the lines of well water the next day. The only government agency with oversight of the unregulated utility, the Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, gave final clearance at the end of August. That followed a 30-day period of hourly and daily quality checks of water coming out of the new treatment plant.
“The plant will produce softer water,” said an information sheet on the company’s website, “alleviating the issues common to groundwater: calcium and mineral buildup on fixtures and dishes; and discoloration due to iron and manganese.”
The Reynolds Water System includes Reynolds Lake Oconee properties in Greene County and other communities and businesses generally along Lake Oconee Parkway up to and including Lake Oconee Academy and St. Mary’s hospital.
Other Piedmont Water systems in Lake Country, including Reynolds Great Waters community in Putnam County, will not be impacted by the change. Nor will they be paying the increased rates Piedmont implemented in July for Reynolds System customers.
Piedmont Water says on its website that the direction of water flow in some of the distribution lines will be permanently reversed. This is expected to temporarily release sediment that has built up in pipes over the years. Customers may also experience discoloration of water.
The company will open fire hydrants throughout the system to bleed out any water affected during the transition and recommends that homeowners also open outside and interior water faucets.
First mentioned in 2015, the plant was projected to cost $8 million but that ballooned to $15 million prior to the start of construction in Fall 2019.
The company has scheduled meetings with customers at Reynolds Lake Oconee and, reportedly other affected parties, to explain the new system.
The new water treatment facility will have no impact on the Piedmont Water sewer system.