Georgia PFAS monitoring

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) began sampling finished drinking water for perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in the winter of 2021, and publishes the results in an interactive story map. EPD describes the work as a targeted monitoring project to assess the level of PFAS in drinking water across Georgia.

In a Phase I ESA

ASTM E1527-21 does not name PFAS monitoring data among its standard record sources. The drinking water data is about public water systems, not about individual properties. Three details shape how to use it.

• The sampling was done in rounds, and each round had a target. The first round covered finished drinking water in the Coosa basin and the neighboring Tennessee basin. EPD gives as the reason the documented presence of PFAS and PFAS sources in the Coosa basin. EPD sent sample kits to all surface water public drinking water systems and to all groundwater public drinking water systems serving 500 people or more. The second round focused on large public water systems serving 100,000 people or more, and on systems close to significant Department of Defense installations. The third round focused on very small public water systems that rely on groundwater in areas where groundwater is highly susceptible to pollution, and that were not part of the federal monitoring described next.
• Federal monitoring runs beside it. EPD says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began monitoring under its fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule in 2023. That monitoring covers 29 PFAS, and all public water systems serving 3,300 people or more must take part.
• A system not sampled is not a clean result. Because each round had a defined target, check which round, if any, covered the water system that serves the property before reading anything into the absence of data.

EPD's page also restates the federal drinking water limits announced on April 10, 2024: 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOA, 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOS, and 10 parts per trillion each for GenX, PFNA and PFHxS, with a hazard index level for four PFAS (PFBS, GenX, PFNA and PFHxS). It says regulated public water systems have until 2027 to complete initial monitoring and must include the results in their annual water quality reports to customers, and that systems above the new standards have until 2029 to reduce PFAS in their drinking water. These figures and dates are as EPD's page gives them; check the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the federal rule now in force.

What the record shows

EPD says its story map holds its current drinking water monitoring initiative and the historical drinking water and surface water monitoring in Georgia. EPD closes its account of the three rounds by saying this data is in the map's Current and Future Monitoring tab.

The page read does not describe PFAS sampling of soil or groundwater at cleanup sites. For a site under an EPD cleanup program, ask that program.

Where to look a site up

• EPD's PFAS Information page links the map as the PFOA and PFOS Interactive Data Map.
• The page gives no phone number of its own. EPD's Drinking Water Program is at 470-524-2567.

Getting the file

The monitoring results are published in the map. EPD's Watershed Protection Branch page links this PFAS information, and a Georgia Open Records Act request to that branch goes through EPD's Open Records Request Portal.

Sources

Georgia Environmental Protection Division pages, read October 7, 2026:

• PFAS Information, last modified March 27, 2026.
• Watershed Protection Branch, no modified date in the saved page.
• Contact Us, last modified June 18, 2026.