The Georgia Water Stewardship Act of 2010 amended O.C.G.A. section 12-5-4 and produced the Environmental Protection Division’s rules for public water systems to improve water supply efficiency, at Chapter 391-3-33.
Who files
Rule 391-3-33-.03 applies the chapter to any public water system that regularly serves 3,300 or more individuals.
When
Rule 391-3-33-.04 requires an annual water loss audit conducted on the calendar year, using the International Water Association and American Water Works Association method, with the results submitted to EPD by March 1 of each calendar year for the year before.
What is certified, and by whom
The submission carries a certification statement from a qualified water loss auditor that the audit meets the standard. Where the quality of an audit is poor, the division may require the system to have it reviewed by a third party and resubmitted. Improving the data validity score is named in the rules as a measure of progress, which is a useful thing to know before reading any Georgia validity score as a judgment on the water rather than on the audit.
What the state publishes
EPD has published the validated audit results every year since 2011, as one workbook per year on its own agency page rather than through an open data catalog. That distinction cost us a wrong conclusion once: a sweep of open data catalogs reported no datasets for Georgia twice, and it was written up as though Georgia did not publish. It does, and the correction is on the record, because the alternative is that the next person repeats the search and gets the same wrong answer.