Forsyth County Water Report

Forsyth County earns an A grade for drinking water quality, scoring 86.0 out of 100. EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System (SDWIS) records zero health-based violations over the past five years — a strong compliance signal for a mid-sized county.

Under the Clean Water Act §303(d), EPA ATTAINS tracks whether waterways meet quality standards for drinking, recreation, and aquatic life (reporting cycle: 2022). A large majority — 74.2% — of assessed waterways are impaired (23 of 31 water bodies) across Forsyth County's watersheds. The leading impairment causes are fecal coliform and chlorophyll-a. Impairment does not mean tap water is unsafe — it measures ambient waterway conditions upstream of treatment, not finished drinking water.

USGS NWIS gauge data (as of 2026-05-14T14:30:00.000-04:00) puts CHATTAHOOCHEE R 0.76 MI US MCGINNIS FY SUWANEE GA at 665.0 cfs — well below its long-term average at 31% of mean — low-flow conditions worth noting for water-dependent ecosystems. Streamflow is a leading indicator of drought stress, sediment load, and dilution capacity: low flows concentrate pollutants and warm water temperatures, stressing aquatic life and, in surface-water-dependent systems, the source water quality for treatment plants.

EPA's Water Quality Portal (WQP) aggregates monitoring data from federal, state, and tribal agencies. Forsyth County has limited coverage with 6 active monitoring sites with 13,713 recent measurements on record. Predominant monitoring categories include physical and nutrient. More monitoring sites generally indicate greater scientific attention to local water conditions — and provide the baseline data that regulators use to set future impairment listings.