AWWA ACE63022

Due to the explosive population growth Georgia is experiencing, there is a growing demand for public and private water supplies. EPD has contracted with a consultant CH2M HILL to develop water use and conservation profiles for several regions of the state. The intent of the work is to provide a characterization for statewide water usage and to estimate potential water savings from standard water conservation practices at varying locations throughout the state. One of the needs for this is the fact that the state has very little information regarding baseline data for current water use in Georgia outside the metro Atlanta portion of the state. The body of work being produced by CH2M HILL entails analysis of local water use and management data from eight water providers around the state. These providers were identified because they represent many of the diverse water use and resource characteristics of our state. The research entails three primary steps. The first step involves collecting up to 5 years of data from these water suppliers: water entering the distribution system either from treatment plants or wells, or from a wholesale purchase; retail water billing data (monthly or by sales period in which the meter is read, including volume of water per customer class and number of accounts per customer class); and, wholesale water purchases and transfers to and from other providers (monthly). Profiles of the water use will be generated for each water provider analyzed. The recommended measure of water use for both public and private water providers is residential gallons per capita per day (gpcd), water used indoor and outdoor, and equivalent residential units (ERUs) for commercial customers and others. Also used to quantify and compare water use will be basic gallons per day per account (gpd/acct). Using the baseline information collected in step one, step two includes selecting water conservation measures most appropriate for the geographic region and the type of water provider (public or private, ground or surface water dependant, large or small operation). Step three involves calculating water savings that can result from implementing the water conservation measures selected in step two and provides simple, repeatable calculations in order to establish the tools necessary to continue progressing toward the statewide conservation goals and, along the way, provide an understanding of the state's conservation potential. Due to the extensive research conducted in the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD), the communities selected for this evaluation lie outside the 16-county Metro Atlanta region. This research, coupled with the research conducted in the 16-county metropolitan Atlanta region will provide the state with a good accounting of public water use across the state.