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Ice, water, steam.  Water comes in many forms.  Here in Southwest Georgia, no matter the form, it is 99.9% pure straight from the ground.

“We are built over lime caverns, the lime caverns act as a natural filter system just like you would a home filter system,” said Lori Farkas, Assistant General Manager of Customer Relations at Water, Gas & Light.

When you turn on the faucet, water comes out but it first travels through hundreds of miles of pipeline, supplied by the city.  Cities can get that water two ways; from surface water like a river or from deep underground in an aquifer which is what we do here in Albany.

“The Floridian Aquifer is sort of like a subterranean lake,” said Richard Brown, General Curator at the Flint Riverquarium.  It’s an artesian well that spans from Florida into Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama.  Albany also draws water from the Tallahatta, Clayton and the upper Cretaceous aquifers.

Due to Albany's low elevation, water from surrounding areas trickles down and stops here.  The earth acts as somewhat of a backwards Brita filter, cleaning out impurities during the water's trip through the porous limestone rock.

As water travels through the underground rivers and city pipes it collects minerals and trace amounts of carbon, nitrates, lead and copper which make up the remaining 0.1% of the 99.9% pure water.

“There's no amount of anything in there that's near what the federal guidelines allow,” said Farkas.

Water, Gas & Light tests the water for the annual water quality report.  This report shows every regulated contaminant that was detected in the water:

 
Graphs from 2012 Water, Gas & Light Water Quality Report

Water, Gas & Light adds chlorine to kill any germs as the water travels through the pipes and fluoride to protect our teeth.  While that's good for you and me, it's not good for aquatic life.  In fact, it is enough to kill a fish.

“It's not bad to humans, it’s not to that level but it's something that we need to remove in our case here for these animals,” said Brown.

The Riverquarium was approved to drill their own well, instead of de-chlorinating the city water for the fish.   They will continue to use Water, Gas and Light water until the well is built.

“The pure water coming out of that ground is good for these fish in so many ways, as opposed to the river water, there no microorganisms that are detrimental to them, no parasites, no anything, it's just coming out pure filtered water,” said Brown.

Not only is the groundwater good for aquatic life and drinking, it is good for making beer too.  MillerCoors is here in Albany mostly because of the water.

“It's good, clean pure water, comes right out of the ground, drink it, most people do,” said David Dixon, Environment Health and Safety Science specialist at  MillerCoors.

After the beer making process, MillerCoors cannot pump that water back into the ground, so they clean it and add it to the Flint River.  

“The water’s very high quality that goes back in the Flint so not only does it add water to the river in times of drought when it’s needed by the animals and plants that live there but it’s also a very high quality,” said Dixon.

All the water in the world right now is all we're ever going to get.  Enjoy a nice glass of South Georgia water knowing you are drinking some of the best in the world.