Walker County Water Authority, GA
Lead detected, under the action levels
Latest 90th-percentile lead: 3.2 ppb (monitoring period 2023-2025). The federal action level is 15 ppb today and drops to 10 ppb in Nov 2027; EPA's health goal is 0. Lead was measured in sampled homes but the 90th percentile is under both action levels. EPA's health goal for lead is zero, so test your own tap if your home was built before 1986 or anyone in it is pregnant or a young child.
Who runs the water here
Walker County Water Authority serves about 36,000 people through 12,048 service connections, which makes it a large system under EPA's size classes. It is owned by a local government (city, town, county or district) and draws surface water, in Walker County, Georgia. EPA system ID: GA2950003; phone on file: 706-820-1455. They can tell you what your service line is made of and whether they pay to replace it.
Lead results over time
That is up 2.1 ppb from 1.1 ppb in the period ending 2022. The highest 90th-percentile result EPA holds for Walker County Water Authority is 3.2 ppb across 4 monitoring periods, none of them over 15 ppb.
| Period ending | 90th-percentile lead |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 3.2 ppb |
| 2022 | 1.1 ppb |
| 2019 | 2.1 ppb |
| 2016 | 1.4 ppb |
How Walker County Water Authority compares
Of the 1,681 Georgia systems with a lead result, the median latest reading is 0.68 ppb; 15 are over 15 ppb right now and 131 have gone over at some point. Walker County Water Authority's 3.2 ppb sits at the 85th percentile in Georgia and the 84th nationally (higher means more lead).
Nearby utilities
4 other systems share Walker County; 1 of them has a higher latest lead result than Walker County Water Authority. If you are unsure which one supplies your house, the name on your water bill decides it.
| System | People | Latest lead |
|---|---|---|
| Lafayette | 18,177 | 2.3 ppb |
| Chickamauga | 5,720 | 1.8 ppb |
| Walker Co. Rural Water Auth. | 3,410 | 4.5 ppb |
| Walker County W&Sa - Armuchee Valley | 620 | 0 (not detected) |
Your move
Test your own tap with a certified lab first-draw sample; Flintstone, GA may offer free or low-cost kits through the utility. If your own line is lead, replacing the private side runs about $1,200-$12,300 (EPA average about $4,700). Ask Walker County Water Authority whether it covers that cost before hiring anyone - many utilities now do.
These figures describe homes the utility sampled, not your tap. Only your service line record or a test of your own water answers the question for your house. What a 90th-percentile result does and does not tell you: how to read a lead result. Size matters more than most people expect: small vs large water systems.