Russell Ray, Assistant Water System Director and Paul Coddington, Assistant Plant Manager for the South Fayette Water Plant accepted awards presented by Water System Director Tony Parrott.
Fayette County’s Water System was recognized by two organizations for the quality of water treatment at the 13.5 MGD Crosstown Water Plant and the 6.2 MGD South Fayette Water Plant.
The Drinking Water Permitting and Engineering Program of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division awarded the plants their Area Wide Optimization Award for the water plants meeting turbidity requirement stricter than regulation. Turbidity readings are a measurement of the light that is deflected by particles when passing through a sample of water.
The goals for this award, as applied to the Water System, were that settled water turbidity was less than 1 NTU 95% of the time when the raw water was less than 10 NTU; filter water turbidity less than 0.1 NTU 95% of the time based on the maximum value recorded during 4 hour increments and having no violations during the time period for the award. This is a review of over 2100 test performed by a certified operator during the year.
Only 18 other water systems in the State received this award.
The other award was the Gold Award. This award was presented by the Georgia Association of Water Professionals for complete and consistent compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act for the year. This includes not only chlorine and fluoride levels but recently added compliance requirements for THMs, HAAs and TOCs.
Only 40 water systems in the state had plants to receive this award.
Fewer than 19 water systems received both awards.
“What adds to the accomplishment is that the water plant operators used water from five surface water sources during the year. The certified operators at both plants have been diligent in the treatment of this water,” said Mr. Parrott.