ATLANTA — About one-third of Georgia residents could be filling up their cups with water that isn’t safe or hasn’t been properly checked for contaminants, according to a new report from an environmental advocacy group.

The report, released this month by the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, ranked Georgia fifth in the nation for total water violations by population served in 2015.

Most of the violations were due to failure to meet federal monitoring and reporting requirements — and not to potential health concerns.

James Capp, chief of the Watershed Protection Branch within the state Environmental Protection Division, noted that Georgia is in the middle of the pack when ranked based on health-based violations.

“The fact that we’re the eighth largest state and we’re at the top for the list for total violations is not something that I think should be alarming to anybody,” Capp said.

Statewide, there were about 900 systems with 1,870 violations serving about 3.8 million people, according to the NRDC report. There are about 2,400 water systems in the state.

About one-tenth of the violations were health-based, meaning samples revealed more than the allowed levels of coliform, lead or other contaminants.

Some of the contaminants can cause cancer, miscarriages, birth defects or other serious health issues.

The health-based violations are tied to 82 systems that serve about 318,000 people — or about 3 percent of the state’s population.

But violations of reporting and monitoring requirements should be taken just as seriously as the health-based violations, said Mae Wu, senior attorney in NRDC’s health program.

“Just because it’s a monitoring and reporting violation does not necessarily mean everything is A-OK,” Wu said. “It also doesn’t mean you have a problem. It just means we don’t know, and your customers don’t know, and you don’t know what’s going on.”

The report found that people who live in rural communities could be particularly vulnerable. Nationwide, small systems that serve 500 or fewer people account for nearly 70 percent of all violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

These small systems triggered a little more than half of all the health-based violations.

“We shouldn’t have a two-tiered water system in this country,” Wu said. “It shouldn’t mean just because you live in a town with fewer people that you don’t have access to as clean drinking water. They should demand that.”

Wu urged people to inquire about their water systems. The EPA’s database of violations can be found here.

Georgia has hundreds of these small systems, found in subdivisions, mobile home parks and other communities all across the state.

Wu said there are several reasons why small systems drew the bulk of the violations.

These systems often have fewer customers and consequently lack the funds necessary for buying and installing updated systems, and they are usually unable — or unwilling — to charge customers the full cost to run the system. They also usually lack a full-time manager.

Proposed federal budget cuts could further hamper the state’s small systems, Wu said.

President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed slashing a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that offers grants and loans to rural systems. That’s on top of deep cuts proposed to the Environmental Protection Agency, the agency responsible for safeguarding the nation’s drinking water.

Jimmy Matthews, who heads the Georgia Rural Water Association, recently traveled to Washington D.C. to urge Georgia senators and congressional representatives to protect the USDA program.

The rural development program provides both grants and loans to help water systems make improvements that they likely could not otherwise afford, he said.

West Point, for example, likely would have never snagged the Kia manufacturing facility without the nearly $15 million in loans it received through the federal program to boost its infrastructure, Matthews said. That was in addition to $2.3 million in grants received.

Matthews acknowledged the struggle for many of the state’s smallest systems, but he bristled at the claim that rural Americans could be at greatest risk from some drinking water contaminants.

“The water they’re drinking is safe,” Matthews said. “Now, there may be some bureaucratic paperwork mix-ups every now and then, but by and large, the water that rural Georgia is drinking is safe.” 

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.