The community water system on Swisher Road has had several complaints of chronic outages. A well serves as the source of water for 30 houses. The houses were originally part of Koinonia Farms, and were designed to bring people out of substandard housing. Koinonia Partners and Koinonia Farms sold the easement for the water system to Bowman Wiley on March 19, 2008. Residents report issues with the water system have occurred Wiley took over.

Resident Monica Mumma gave an interview Sept 5, telling how the frequent lack of water pressure created problems for residents. “The state considers 20 pounds per square inch legal, not because that’s the least usable amount to get a shower, to get a hot shower, or to do laundry, because at 20 pounds and under, it’s gonna start going backwards. When that system isn’t pressurized, backflow and contamination [results].”

She told how when issues like that occurred, the operator was supposed to notify consumers. “That’s an automatic boil water notice. As best as I know, we’re still on the same boil water notice from January 1. This year he hasn’t issued one notice.”

Mumma described the severity of the issue. “Kids have missed school for not being able to have clean clothes or bath.”

She stated the issues with Bowman’s oversight of the water system had been going on for more than a decade. “They just renewed his permit, and they’re tallying up the violations again.” When contacted again, Mumma noted no changes as of October 31.

Sammy Brown, another resident at Swisher Road, also shared his experiences on September 5. When asked about interruptions in the water flow, he replied; “It’ll be on one day, then the next day it’s off.” Brown also mentioned that even when it’s on, lack of pressure was a problem. “You can’t do two things at one time with that water.”

Brown stated water quality was also an issue. “It ain’t got the right chemicals in it for one thing. Then the pressure’s always low on it and half of the time, if a good storm come through, the whole thing will go off and it will stay off about two or three days.”

Brown told when the problems began. “When it got transferred over to Bowman Wiley, that’s when the troubles started.”

Rosa Butler, another resident, gave an interview on October 31. She stated that she had to get her children to bring her water. “We pay Bowman $50 a month for water, and it ain’t even worth paying him $50 a month when we ain’t got no water.” She stated Wiley had brought water to the residents once last year.

Butler also told how the lack of pressure affected her. “It takes me three hours to wash a half a load of clothes.” She told how she tried to wash clothes at night, when other residents are asleep. She stated the situation had remained unchanged from when previous interviews were conducted. “It ain’t getting no better.”

A letter dated September 12, 2024, from the Environmental Protection Agency to Bowman Wiley, Jr., referred to Wiley’s six systems, stating that; “the EPA alleges that the systems are in noncompliance with the SDWA, the National Drinking Water Regulations, and the Georgia Primary Drinking Water Regulations.” The SDWA stands for Safe Drinking Water Act.

The letter contained the following information. “At the July 18, 2024, site visit performed by GA EPD, the free chlorine residual at Graystone Village and Koinonia Forrest Park PWSs was less than .2 parts per million.”

Another site visit found that four other water systems owned by Wiley were below compliance for chlorine levels. The letter noted Koinonia Forrest Park specifically. “At the July 18, 2024, site visit performed by GA EPD, the chlorine pump at Koinonia Forrest Park PWS was inoperable.”

The letter listed further issues, including leaks at multiple water systems. A leak was discovered at the Koinonia Forrest Park public water system from the storage tank to the distribution system, and another in the well casing. The letter also noted that at the time of inspection, the lead and copper monitoring results for all six sites owned by Wiley were not delivered to customers.

Lisa Myler, district manager of the Southwest District office of the Environmental Protection Division, gave an interview on October 3 concerning issues at all six of Wiley’s water systems. She told how there were issues even before he purchased the Koinonia Forrest Park water system. “We’ve been working on trying to get him into compliance and stay in compliance since probably ’07.”

Myler outlined the chief violations. “He’ll go three years without doing any sampling for chemical parameters, and then he’ll do all of his sampling in one year. And then he won’t do it again until he’s missed an entire round, and then he’ll do it all in one year. He struggles to maintain a free chlorine residual at each of the water systems, which really is a safety precaution.”

She told how Wiley would typically respond to consent orders. “What would normally happen is he would make these heroic efforts to come back into compliance.”

Myler told how the systems would often have physical issues. “You know, the chlorine equipment’s not working so there’s no chlorine residual in the system, there’s leaks in the distribution system, or, you know, the well itself, so that the customers have pressure issues. That’s one of the biggest issues that Koinonia Forrest Park has experienced over the past two years, is significantly low pressure. Their pressure is routinely right around 20-25 pounds per square inch, which is not enough to run a dishwasher, it’s not enough to run a hot water heater, it’s not enough to run a washing machine. So having low pressure like that is truly a challenge for homeowners. And then at Koinonia-Forrest Park, he’s had regular outages.”

Myler noted the frequency. “If there was a holiday coming up, I could just assume that there was going to be a water outage out there.”

She stated one cause of the pressure issues at Koinonia Forrest Park. “We’ve required him to install a larger storage tank so that he has more storage based on the number of customers he has out there. He’s not done that yet.”
Myler noted the issues have resulted in legal problems for Wiley. “We’ve been in and out of court with him. He’s currently under inditement by the Federal Government. EPA has actually taken over compliance for these facilities, so that is now on their list of things there’re trying to get him to do. He’s been fairly responsive to the EPA and their requirements. And then, of course, with EPA, their fines for non-compliance are significantly higher than at the state level.” She told how EPA fines could be in the thousands.

She talked about how another issue was that water systems require regular reporting. “He’s supposed to do routine reporting. There’s a monthly operating report he’s supposed to send here. He generally doesn’t.”

Myler told how the reports led to the case against Wiley. “The federal case against him is regarding those.” She gave details. “One count of falsification of records.”

When asked for comment, Wiley declined to be interviewed.

Myler was again contacted on October 31 asking if any major changes had occurred since the EPA had taken over the case. She did note that Wiley has been conducting chlorine checks and reading meters, but that few other significant changes have occurred in the Koinonia Forrest Park water system.