Water, Water Everywhere, and Some of it is Lost

by James Laughlin, Editor

Imagine you have a business where 5 to 30 percent of your product is used or lost without generating revenue for your company. You produce it, but you don't get paid for the product of your labor. Wasted effort down the drain.

You don't have to stretch your imagination too far in the U.S. water industry - it's a fact of life. In a survey conducted last year, responding utilities reported an average of 16% of delivered water, or 2.45 billion gallons per day, was listed as unbilled or lost water.

The water industry in the United States has a significant problem with water that goes unaccounted for, according to the American Water Works Association. Many utilities don't even attempt to account for water use/loss. There also is a lack of standardization in the terminology used in accounting for water usage.

The association has established a Leak Detection & Water Accountability Committee to study the topic. Last year the committee issued a comprehensive strategic plan for the period 2000 - 2002. The plan's goal is to provide guidance on assessing water loss and identify actions needed to improve water resource management.

The committee met recently at AWWA's annual conference to discuss the issues of water loss. Members of the committee also presented papers at the conference. One of the speakers was George A. Kunkel Jr., P.E., Chief of the Load Control Center at Philadelphia Water Department.

"The LDWA Committee is sponsoring a project to obtain information on the water loss reporting and monitoring requirements of state and regional water oversight agencies. While only partially complete at this time, this project is making it clear that the United States water industry does not employ consistent, rational standards for 'water accounting' or water loss reduction," Kunkel said in a recent letter to WaterWorld.

"In addition to the confusing or non-existent water accounting, it is only too apparent from documented case studies that many North American water suppliers lose, or can't account for, significant quantities of water. Yet, surprisingly, water loss does not seem to hold prominence on the current agenda of major water industry issues," he said.

That's disturbing in this age of tight budgets and amid the growing concern about water resource issues. Water that goes unaccounted for, either because of loss or because its use was not properly recorded, costs money in the form of wasted chemicals, energy and labor. Utilities struggling to upgrade their treatment facilities might well not need those upgrades if they could reduce the amount of water leaking from their distribution systems.

In a paper he presented at the AWWA Conference, Kunkel said the water loss problem in the United States is a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is the large amount of water lost represents another major issue for the water industry. The good news is water loss recovery is usually highly cost-effective and self-sustaining and may well represent one of the world's best remaining untapped water resources.

Yes, a water resource. Every gallon saved by plugging a leak is just one more gallon that doesn't have to come from the environment.