Results of the metro Atlanta source assessment project

Proceedings of the 2003 Georgia Water Resources Conference, held April 23-24, 2003, at the University of Georgia.The 1996 Amendments to the Safe Water Drinking Act resulted in an EPA mandate that every State be required to submit an implementation plan for comprehensive Source Water Assessment Programs. The Atlanta Regional Commission in coordination with the State of Georgia Department of Natural Resources and local water managers developed these assessments for 28 Metro Atlanta water supply watersheds. These assessments resulted in an inventory of almost 6,000 potential individual sources of pollution. Watershed susceptibility to contamination through non-point source runoff using land use analysis as an indicator was also evaluated. A combined susceptibility ranking of high, medium or low was then determined for each of the watersheds. In the Metro Atlanta Region, four watersheds ranked highly susceptible to potential pollutant sources, three ranked medium to high, sixteen ranked medium and five ranked low