Columbus
What Columbus filed with EPD about the water it produced and the water it billed for, 2011–2025 — and what the filing does and does not let anyone verify.
- Non-revenue water, FY2025
- 24.4% Computed from filed system input and billed consumption.
- system input volume 10,026 sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell H58 · million gallons per year, declared in the header through 2020 and settled for 2021-2025 by EPD's own cost arithmetic and by continuity across the change
- billed authorized consumption 7,580 sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell I58 · billed metered plus billed unmetered
- Recoverable annually
- $822,000 Apparent loss is valued at this utility's own reported retail price of water. Real loss is NOT included — EPD publishes a variable production cost whose unit it does not declare, so no dollar figure is put on the leaked water. The real recoverable total is higher than this by an amount this filing does not let anyone state.
- cost of apparent losses, as filed 821,919 sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell Z58
- Balance check
- inapplicable EPD derives water losses from system input minus authorized consumption, so this decomposition holds by construction.
2026-09-06-69903a9418bc.xlsx2025 Water Audits H58
Where this figure comes from
(system input − billed authorized) ÷ system input × 100
From data/archive/ga-epd-water-loss/2026-09-06-69903a9418bc.xlsx (SHA-256 69903a9418bc6d60), retrieved 2026-09-06 from the published source.
2026-09-06-69903a9418bc.xlsx2025 Water Audits Z58
Where this figure comes from
cost of apparent losses + cost of real losses, both as computed in the filed audit
From data/archive/ga-epd-water-loss/2026-09-06-69903a9418bc.xlsx (SHA-256 69903a9418bc6d60), retrieved 2026-09-06 from the published source.
What the record shows
24.4% non-revenue water in FY2025, higher than 45% of the 228 Georgia systems that filed that year.
- The figure is getting worse across the record.
Compliance record
4 violations on EPA's record for this system as of 2026Q2. 4 resolved, and 0 still open.
Nothing on the record is open as of 2026Q2.
Counted as distinct violations, not as rows: EPA's export carries one row per enforcement action taken against a violation, so a row count would multiply this system's record several times over. A violation here is a breach of a reporting, monitoring or contaminant-level rule as reported to EPA — it is not a measurement of the water, and this site has none.
Source: US EPA, Safe Drinking Water Information System, via the ECHO national download, 2026Q2. How we hold it.
EPD derives water losses from system input minus authorized consumption, so these parts sum to the whole on every filing. What a filing can get wrong is which of these numbers were measured.
Where these volumes come from
- System input 10,026 MG sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell H58 · million gallons per year, declared in the header through 2020 and settled for 2021-2025 by EPD's own cost arithmetic and by continuity across the change
- Billed authorized 7,580 MG sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell I58 · billed metered plus billed unmetered
- Unbilled authorized 433.9 MG sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell K58 · unbilled metered plus unbilled unmetered
- Apparent loss 275 MG sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell O58
- Real loss 1,737 MG sheet 2025 Water Audits , cell P58
From data/archive/ga-epd-water-loss/2026-09-06-69903a9418bc.xlsx (SHA-256 69903a9418bc6d60), retrieved 2026-09-06 from the published source.
| Year | NRW | Input (MG) | Recoverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 24.4% | 10,026 | $822,000 |
| 2024 | 28.9% | 10,985 | $742,000 |
| 2023 | 21.9% | 9,422 | $679,000 |
| 2022 | 23.9% | 9,974 | $669,000 |
| 2021 | 27.2% | 9,983 | $649,000 |
| 2020 | 22.0% | 9,607 | $560,000 |
| 2019 | 21.9% | 10,182 | $641,000 |
| 2018 | 20.9% | 9,474 | $537,000 |
| 2017 | 23.8% | 10,279 | $568,000 |
| 2016 | 23.1% | 11,229 | $622,000 |
| 2015 | 21.5% | 10,466 | $652,000 |
| 2014 | 23.1% | 10,678 | $781,000 |
| 2013 | 19.7% | 10,087 | $508,000 |
| 2012 | 14.8% | 10,549 | $561,000 |
| 2011 | 14.8% | 11,067 | $476,000 |
Comparable systems
The same size band — over 50,000 connections.
| System | Basis for comparison | NRW |
|---|---|---|
| Henry County | over 50,000 connections | 12.8% FY2025 |
| Forsyth County Dept. Of | over 50,000 connections | 10.2% FY2025 |
| Augusta | over 50,000 connections | 34.1% FY2025 |
| North Fulton County | over 50,000 connections | 2.4% FY2025 |
| Gainesville | over 50,000 connections | 9.8% FY2025 |
| Paulding County | over 50,000 connections | 39.1% FY2025 |
| Walton County | over 50,000 connections | 36.1% FY2025 |
| Macon | over 50,000 connections | 23.3% FY2025 |
Where is it going?
This page says how much — roughly $822,000 a year. It cannot say which accounts, which zones, or which meters. That takes your billing history, your meter reads, and your production data reconciled against each other.
Our Water Loss Recovery Snapshot is three weeks, one flat fee, and the deliverable is a ranked list of specific accounts and zones with dollars and a confidence on each.
See what the Snapshot delivers Email us about ColumbusSources and corrections. Every figure above is either filed by the utility or computed from filed figures, and each one says which. If a number here is wrong, it is either wrong in the filing or wrong in our reading of it — tell us which and we will correct the page and say what changed.
- Georgia EPD — validated water loss audit results, filed under the Water Stewardship Act of 2010. Retrieved 2026-09-06 from data/archive/ga-epd-water-loss/2026-09-06-69903a9418bc.xlsx. https://epd.georgia.gov/watershed-protection-branch/water-efficiency-and-water-loss-audits