Water/Sewer Maintenance

The Water Maintenance Division is responsible for the installation and repair of the water and sewer utilities inside the Authority’s service area. The Authority’s service area covers some 283 square miles and includes 650 miles of various sized water mains and 110 miles sewer outfalls.

Business Hours: MON – FRI 8:00 am – 5:00 pm

Emergency Number: Water: 770-385-3939

service truck and mini excavator

How to Check For Leaks

A small leak, about the size of a pin head, dripping at one drop per second can add up to 7 gallons of water a day. A large leak, the kind most often found in toilets, can waste 200 gallons of water or more per day! Check out the following when you suspect a leak:

Faucets
Check faucets in the bathroom and kitchen periodically.
Worn washers are most often the cause of dripping faucets.

Sprinkler Systems
Broken sprinkler heads or damaged underground pipes are common sources of sprinkler system leaks. Watch your system run at least once per month to spot problems early. Usually, leaks are easy to fix. Do-it-yourself books with easy to follow instructions are available at libraries and home improvement stores.

Toilets
Check toilets for leaks often. The most common causes of a leaking toilet are:

float device set too high, which causes water to run into the overflow tube
a warped or cracked flapper

Inexpensive toilet leak kits are available at home improvement stores.

Don’t forget to use your water meter to detect leaks.
Use your water meter to determine if you have a leak:

Make sure no water is being used inside or outside (no washing machine filling, no shower running, no watering outdoors, etc.).
Locate your water meter box. Carefully remove the cover and lift the top of the meter.
Find the red Leak Indicator on the meter dial. If all of your water sources are off and the Leak Indicator is rotating, you may have a leak. Leaks can waste thousands of gallons of water in a just a few days. It pays to fix leaks promptly.

How To Read Your Meter

Locating Your Meter Box

For Residential Customers: In most cases, the water meter is located at the front of the property near the street under ground.
For Commercial Customers: In most cases, the water meter is located at the front of the property, or could be located in the back or side of property under ground. In some cases depending on the size of the commercial property, the meter will be locked under ground in a large vault. In these cases, do not attempt to obtain a reading. Please contact NCWSA (770-385-3940) to obtain a reading of the meter.
When looking at the water meter, locate the BLACK numbers on the LEFT side of the meter dial with the WHITE background. These numbers count the number of gallons of water that have passed through your meter.

Determining Your Water Usage

Use the following example to help read your meter:

Select a day to take an initial water meter reading.
Write down the numbers you see on the meter odometer. (ex. 0260000)
After a period of time has passed (such as a day or week), read your meter again. (ex. new reading of 0263000)
Subtract your first reading from the second reading. This is your water usage for that period. (ex. 0263000—0260000 = 3000)
The 3000 figure indicates that 3,000 gallons of water have been used during the time period between the two readings.

Backflow Prevention

Certified backflow testers may request to be added to the NCWSA approved backflow tester list by registering on the AquaResource site at www.backflow.tecnxs.com.

Approved Backflow Testers List

Protecting Your Water Against Contamination

Congress established the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974 to protect human health from contaminants in drinking water and to prevent contamination of existing groundwater supplies. This act and its amendments (1986 and 1996) require many actions to protect drinking water and its sources. One of these actions is the installation and maintenance of an approved backflow prevention assembly at the water service connection whenever a potential hazard is determined to exist in the customer’s system. Without proper protection devices, cross connections can occur.

What is a cross connection?

Any connection which permits non potable water to enter a water distribution system. When this occurs, your drinking water can become contaminated.

OK. So? What is backflow?

Backflow is when the water in your pipes (the pipes after the water meter) goes backward (the opposite direction from its normal flow). There are two situations that can cause the water to go backward (backflow):

Backpressure – the pressure in your pipes is greater than the pressure coming in.
Backsiphonage – a negative pressure in one of the pipes.

To protect the water system, two kinds of backflow prevention methods (ways to prevent the backflow of water) are required for all business customers that present a potential hazard to the water system:

External – to protect the water from cross connection with the water on the customer’s premises
Internal – to protect the customer from potentially hazardous cross connections in his own system.

What is considered a potential hazard?

ANY possibility of pollutants, contaminants, and system or plumbing hazards. For example: fire protection systems, irrigation systems, gasoline refineries and stations, restaurants, hospitals, and manufacturers. Just to name a few.

To keep your drinking water safe, the Newton County Water & Sewerage Authority diligently checks the plans of each new business for compliance with cross connection/backflow requirements. We take pride in the water we provide and will continue to protect it and our citizens. All residential meters come installed with a AWWA approved backflow prevention device.

Now that you have some background, you may ask…What’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is that backflows due to cross connections can cause sickness and death. Even in your own home, you can unwittingly create a cross connection:

Putting the garden hose in a swimming pool to fill it.
Putting the garden hose in a pet’s water bucket to fill it, or the fish tank.
Putting the garden hose down the drain to flush out debris when it’s backed up.
Connecting your garden hose to a plant fertilizer or bug spray unit.

Over half of the nation’s cross connections involve unprotected garden hoses. In Kansas, a man died from drinking out of his garden hose. He had been spraying the yard with poison to get rid of bugs and had connected his garden hose to the spraying device. Unknown to him, during the spraying, a drop in pressure occurred in the main water system causing the poisoned water to backflow into the hose. Enough to kill him when he took a drink from the garden hose after spraying. He had contaminated his own water system.

The Newton County Water & Sewerage Authority protects the water entering your system. However, it is your responsibility to protect the water on your property or in your home.

For more information on how to protect the water on your property, please call Bryan Bloodworth NCWSA Backflow Prevention at 770-385-3930.

Certified backflow testers may request to be added to the NCWSA approved backflow tester list by registering on the AquaResource site at www.backflow.tecnxs.com.