Piedmont Water has begun a 30-day testing period of its new water treatment plant, located off Kings Way in Reynolds Lake Oconee.
The Georgia Environmental Protection Division of the Department of Natural Resources says the utility started taking daily tests of the facility’s output on June 8.
It will only serve Greene County residential and business customers of the Reynolds Water System which runs from Reynolds Lake Oconee to the St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital.
It includes The Landing, Del Webb, and Vintage Club residential communities as well as Lake Oconee Academy.
The new treatment plant will be able to pull up to two million gallons of water from Lake Oconee each day, treat it and send it out to customers who have been getting groundwater from about 22 wells that Piedmont Water operates in the area.
EPD has already approved the treatment plant facility, which took three years to complete. The company must now finish the 30 days of testing and send the results to a lab selected by Piedmont Water but certified by the EPD.
“The lab can take 2 to 4 weeks for analysis,” Manny Patel, Drinking Water Program Manager for the Georgia EPD told The Lake Oconee News. “Those results are sent to the water system which will compile the data along with operating records and submit it for EPD review. It takes EPD a minimum of two weeks to go thru the data.”
Patel says this will be the 105th water treatment plant in Georgia and the first to be operated by a private company.
As a private unregulated utility, Piedmont Water sets its own rates although some are negotiated with large developments and companies. The company has not revealed what the financial impact will be on users when the new plant goes online.