Paulding County, GA Water Use Rules: Recycled Water Rules (2026)

The rule lives in Paulding County's local amendments to the International Plumbing Code, adopted at Code of Ordinances Section 18-31(d)(2). 2 to Chapter 13, Nonpotable Water Systems, to spell out exactly where reclaimed water can go. Water from a wastewater treatment system permitted by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division may supply toilets, urinals, floor-drain and floor-sink trap primers, water features, and other uses the authority having jurisdiction approves, but only in buildings where the individual occupant has no direct control over the plumbing: motels, hotels, apartment and condominium buildings, and commercial, industrial, or institutional buildings.

The same EPD-permitted reclaimed water may also feed water chillers, carwashes, or other industrial processes that do not need potable-quality water. A. Section 1-3-3 defines them; it cannot be used on ordinary landscaping such as ground cover, trees, or shrubs. That cap does not reach existing private reclaimed-water systems or any governmentally owned reclaimed wastewater treatment system, new or old, which remain free to irrigate other landscaping. Developers who want to build reuse water infrastructure face separate engineering standards in Appendix B, Article 11: a Georgia-registered professional engineer must submit a hydraulic analysis and a water-balance study showing the development's reuse return rate covers its wastewater flow, reuse mains cannot run smaller than four inches, and the system must deliver at least 45 psi at design flow, all reviewed by the county water and sewer system department before construction begins.