Public Utilities Notice

City of CorneliaKeith Ethridge
Utilities Department
PO Box 785 Cornelia, Ga. 30531
Telephone: 706-778-8585
email: kethridge@cornelia.city



The City of Cornelia along with every public water system (PWS) in the United States has been forced to comply with new EPA Rules and Regulations on lead in drinking water.  Although lead was banned from being installed as a service line in 1986, it wasn’t until now that the Federal Government changed the rules to require lead service lines to be replaced. The new rules require PWS’s to identify the pipe material of both publicly owned water service lines and privately owned customer water service lines. The rules call for replacement of all lead service lines and all galvanized water lines that are or were downstream of lead service lines.  This replacement is to be for both public and private service lines..  Please note, ONLY galvanized lines that are downstream of lead service lines are to be replaced.  During our inventory process and regular maintenance over the last 20 years, we have NEVER identified a lead service that was installed in the Cornelia Water System.  Furthermore, our consultant has worked with many other water systems, and it is their understanding from interviewing these systems that lead service lines were not a commonly used item in the state of Georgia.

EPA has not provided funding for all of this work and the cost of a self-funded project could potentially cost 2 Million Dollars not to mention that there are laws prohibiting expenditure of public funds on private property and the liability that the City would take on in replacing customer water lines up to the dwelling or building. Water rates would have to increase exponentially to pay for such an endeavor and could impact the affordability of water for our customers.

The American Water Works Association, which Cornelia is a corporate member, has challenged the EPA to allow water system officials to attest that there is no lead service lines in their perspective water systems. In order to make this attestation the PWS officials would need in depth knowledge of the water system infrastructure which could only be acquired by exposing large portions of the underground material and documentation made as to its construction material. The City of Cornelia PWS has been operated by the same officials for two decades and during that time repairs and construction projects have been well documented and 80% of the water system infrastructure has been replaced in the same 20-year period.

Since the implementation of the Lead and Copper Rule in 1990, the EPA has identified that median blood levels for young children have decreased 10-fold since the mid-1970s.  The City of Cornelia is committed to protecting the health of it’s customers (which includes our elected officials and many of the employees), and will remove any lead service lines or associated galvanized lines that are part of the public water system, should they be found.  Furthermore, we will notify any customers where a lead service line is removed so they can determine if they own any galvanized water lines that they need to replace.  However, based on the detailed knowledge we have of our system and significant replacement that has already occurred, we do not expect any lead service lines to be found.

Thank you