Leak Detection Is Not Wasted

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that 7 billion gallons of water go unaccounted for every day in the United States.

Meanwhile, droughts are expected to keep getting longer and more severe, according to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“There is no doubt that the responsible management of water is becoming increasingly important in order to protect the future of this precious resource,” says Joe Ball, director of marketing for Water North America at Itron. “Leak detection and water conservation play an important role in ensuring water’s future.”

Webster says it’s time for utilities to manage their plants and distribution networks like a private business, given the “costs to produce water on the rise and federal and state funding programs decreasing. This means accurate management of the product they produce and accurate billing of that product to the end user.”

America’s aging infrastructure continues to be a dominating factor in the need for assertive leak detection practices.

Citing American Water Works Association (AWWA) reports, Steve Bruskiewicz, product manager for water solutions for Aclara, points out that there’s a $1 trillion price tag to fix the problem over the next 25 years.

The Water Research Foundation offers the Water Loss and Real Loss Component Analysis, a free tool to help water utilities analyze and reduce system leakage. The tool can be obtained at http://bit.ly/1DCVwDs.

The Water Research Foundation received an EPA Cooperative Agreement for $1.6 million in October 2010 called “Helping Water Utilities Deliver High Quality Water.”

“This five-year effort provides the mechanism to conduct a number of research projects on various topics concerning drinking water issues to help water utilities—through effective treatment, distribution system management, and monitoring—deliver high quality water that ensures public health and safety,” says Maureen Hodgins, research manager for the Water Research Foundation.

The tool complements the AWWA’s free water audit. It was prepared by Reinhard Sturm, Katherine Gasner, Timothy Wilson, and Stephen Preston of Water Systems Optimization, and Mary Ann Dickinson of the Alliance for Water Efficiency. Hodgins says the tool can “help utility managers better understand their systems’ real losses and thus help them make better investment decisions on the appropriate interventions.”

In 2009, the California Urban Water Conservation Council (CUWCC) revised its Best Management Practices to include reporting of real loss component analysis by 2014 which would mean that 227 California water suppliers would voluntarily do this to comply with their membership to CUWCC, says Hodgins.

In its executive summary, the Water Research Foundation indicates there are three major steps in developing a real loss reduction strategy: a “top down” water audit, a component analysis of real losses, and an evaluation of least cost real loss reduction strategies.

The summary states that “very few water utilities have the necessary expertise in leakage loss management to efficiently undertake a leakage component analysis and design the correct leakage control program. This means that utilities often invest money in leakage control activities such as simple leak detection programs that are not based on a sound Economic Level of Leakage analysis.”

“The main point of the real loss component analysis tool is to get more information on your system’s leakage, because then you can categorize into one of the three types of leakage: reported, unreported, or background,” says Hodgins. “These categories help you figure out which intervention strategy is appropriate.”

For example, leak detection is appropriate to reduce unreported leakage, but will not help a utility reduce background leakage or reported leakage, she points out.

A trend Hodgins notes is that most utilities are still learning how to use the water audit. “The real loss component analysis tool is a bit of a reach, but is ideal for those that already have been using the water audit for a few years and have a good understanding of it,” she says.

In-House Or Outsourced
Whether a utility outsources leak detection or conducts it in-house depends on a number of factors.

“If they’re going to outsource it to a contractor to do a survey of a specific area or the entire system, there’s nothing wrong with that, but those programs tend to be the first to go during budget cuts,” says Aclara’s Bruskiewicz. “Utilities should own the leak detection equipment and leak detection should be part of their standard operation and maintenance plan.”

Jan Boyer, marketing manager for Badger Meter, agrees.

“Having dedicated resources and equipment to continually monitor the water distribution system for leaks is the most effective, and efficient, approach,” says Boyer. “While outsourced surveys are able to identify many leaks during the course of the survey, leaks develop constantly and systems should be surveyed routinely to stay ahead of the leak curve.

“The key to an effective in-house leak detection program begins with the selection of highly accurate proven meter technology combined with powerful and intuitive Advanced Metering Analytics [AMA] software.”

Utilities that can handle both proactive and reactive leak detection tend to be smaller, says Henry Scott, a project manager and leak detection expert for Wachs Water Services. “They’ll have minimal non-revenue water and a good handle on the locations of their assets, control points, and meters, and have the information in-house,” he says. “On the opposite side of the spectrum, many large utilities have no choice but to focus their limited resources on reactive leak detection. They may not have accurate system mapping and may be on an estimated billing schedule. The net result is that many of these larger utilities don’t have a great handle on the magnitude of their real losses.”

In those situations, it may be better for that utility to outsource leak detection in order to obtain an inventory of water assets, he adds.

Another influencing factor is the level of a utility’s in-house training and expertise to be able to execute such a project.

In combining leak detection with asset management, the company’s crews have “years of experience not only in detecting leaks, they also have a background in how the distribution system is actually put together and the control points that help to operate the system,” says Scott.

One challenge can be competing priorities in utilizing staff to perform leak detection on top of responding to emergencies—i.e., striking a balance of both reactive and proactive tasks.

“The AWWA recommends getting through your system on an annual or semi-annual basis and that can be difficult given the typical equipment and human resource constraints,” says Scott. “The key benefit of outsourcing it is bringing in specialists with a well-defined scope. It might even be limited, for instance, to do reactive work only on the service requests of difficult-to-pinpoint leaks.”

“If you don’t have the horsepower to do the proactive part, you bring the contractor in to get through the system. It could be surveying grid by grid. You can do it by main size. You can do it where you start with your critical large mains first. With professional contracting, you’re able to get a specific task done without the risk that the task will be derailed by a competing priority once underway.”

In-House
Those who conduct leak detection in-house have a number of equipment options.

Badger Meter offers multiple tools to provide utilities and their customers greater visibility to their water usage, and consumption patterns, as well as expose potential leaks, notes Kristie Anderson, product marketing manager. “These tools work together to provide solutions the utilities need to help boost profitability and optimize their operations, their leak detection, and their conservation efforts,” Anderson adds.

The company offers residential and commercial meters in mechanical and electronic technologies. Residential mechanical meters feature positive displacement technology designed for optimal low-flow accuracy.

Badger Meter’s electronic meters include the E-Series Ultrasonic meter with no moving parts to impede the flow stream. The meters are designed for improved reliability, greater extended low flow accuracies, and minimal maintenance.

The company recently introduced to the market two high-resolution encoders: the HR-E 8-dial encoder and the HR-E LCD programmable 9-digit electronic encoder. “The high resolution encoded output helps provide leak detection and other critical information to help utilities and end customers manage their water,” says Anderson.

Badger Meter’s ORION system provides a potential leak detection notification when continuous usage is measured during any 24-hour time period, says Anderson, adding that the meter’s “potential leak” detection notification automatically resets when the continuous flow condition has been fixed or no longer exists.

Badger Meter recently introduced the BEACON AMA software suite to help utilities easily identify when a potential leak condition exists. “To help utilities respond on a timely basis, e-mail and text alerts can be configured on a per meter basis so that a notification is sent when these conditions exist,” says Anderson. “In turn, utilities can allow their customers access to their water consumption data via EyeOnWater, an online consumer portal and app. The utility’s customer can configure software so that an alert is sent to them via text or email when their water consumption exceeds the parameters they set, or when their meter shows continuous flow.”

That can be critical in regions experiencing water shortages, Anderson points out.

The meters, high-resolution encoders, ORION endpoints, and the BEACON AMA software suite used in conjunction provide utilities with an end-to-end solution for managing water more effectively and efficiently, says Anderson.

Additionally, Badger Meter has teamed up with Fluid Conservation Systems to make water main leak detection an integral part of everyday meter reading. Badger Meter has integrated the FCS Permalog+ acoustic leak detection system into the ORION endpoints.

“The effectiveness of the ORION and Permalog technology has been repeatedly proven in some of the harshest conditions on earth,” notes Anderson. “Loggers are immersion-tested to IP68 and continue to operate even in flooded environments. Water suppliers can monitor 100% of their distribution system confidently and effectively, enabling leakage to be reduced quickly, and easily maintained at a low level.”

Proactive leak detection is the only means of improving supply-side water efficiency in any water distribution system, notes Boyer.

“Utilities in drought-stressed regions must consider implementing leak detection programs to reduce real water loss—physical leakage—to complement their current efforts to reduce apparent water loss—revenue loss—due to inaccurate meters and inefficient reading and billing systems,” says Boyer.

The nation’s aging water distribution system infrastructure leaks billions of gallons of water into the ground, sanitary and stormwater sewer systems, and adjacent water bodies, Boyer points out. “These leaks can only be identified by using modern leak detection equipment in a systematic water loss control program,” says Boyer. “On a more local scale, providing utility customers with visibility into their own water consumption using tools like the EyeOnWater consumer portal and app helps make those customer allies in efforts to conserve water.”

In Coeur D’Alene, ID, the water department’s use of Badger Meter’s Recordall meters and the ORION AMR system to collect meter reads has improved its leak detection activities. “Early leak detection provided through metering technology is key to us to provide excellent customer service by notifying customers in a timely manner of a potential savings in excessive use fees,” says Rob Stark, utility supervisor.

Coeur D’Alene’s system of 255 miles of water mains is comprised of two-inch to 16-inch transmission mains that include galvanized pipe, asbestos cement, and C900. The system serves about 18,200 customers.

Years ago, it took two utility workers two months to manually read all of the meters throughout the city, says Stark, adding that customers would not know in that amount of time if they had a leak. Now, with the leak detection program, it takes one utility worker about 2.5 days to read the meters and the utility bills monthly.

“We notify customers of a leak or potential leak within a month of the last reading,” says Stark. “Every two months, we do a base rate one month and then we do a consumption billing the following month.” The water utility used to outsource leak detection but after instituting new technology, “we discovered that it was more practical for us to do it and a lot more inexpensive,” notes Stark.

Water utility service personnel review the data monthly and notify customers as quickly as possible regarding potential problems. “That way if the customer has a leak, the information is used to grant them credit if they’re quickly repaired by the customer. We can potentially save them money both on finding a leak quickly, and then we also credit them for a loss of water that they were unaware of if they get it repaired in a timely manner,” he says.

The Coeur D’Alene Water Department is “very proactive in infrastructure replacement,” notes Stark. “It’s not only for our meters, but for our main services and other related facilities. We don’t want to have to charge huge rate increases for emergency replacement of failed infrastructure.”

While drought is a water issue with which many utilities contend, for Coeur D’Alene’s Water Department, the challenge is water rights adjudication. “New water rights are hard to come by, so we treat conservation as very crucial to meeting customer demand,” says Stark.

Stark’s advice to other utilities on setting up a leak detection program is to do a lot of research. “Don’t jump at the first thing,” he says. “Do your homework. Contact other utilities to see what they’re using.”

His city chose Badger Meter technology based on its customer service, says Stark. “We were seeing up to a 20% failure with the other product that we were using and no remedy for it with their customer service,” he says. “With Badger Meter, we’ve had less than a 1% failure rate, if that, with their products.”

Itron’s 100W water communication module, when deployed with an integrated leak sensor, monitors a utility’s entire distribution system around the clock, acoustically listening for leaks and surveying the system’s integrity.

“By actually ‘listening’ to the distribution system, an innovative combination of acoustic sensor hardware and advanced data analysis software helps to solve the problem of real loss between the treatment plant and the consumer, reducing the production of non-revenue water, optimizing repair and remediation efforts,” says Ball. By recovering non-revenue water, the leak detection solution helps utilities find small leaks before they become large costly leaks or main breaks, he adds.

Aclara’s STAR ZoneScan acoustic leak-detection technology from Gutermann is designed to reduce non-revenue water losses through advanced acoustic monitoring technology that pinpoints leaks in water mains and services. Acoustic loggers—attached to valves via the integrated magnetic base—are deployed at regular intervals throughout the water pipeline network to detect leak locations.

The ZoneScan system automates the collection, retrieval, and analysis of acoustic data by leveraging Aclara’s STAR Network AMI system. The system status, leaks, and potential leaks are categorized, with the information delivered at 10 a.m. daily, says Bruskiewicz. Once a system such as ZoneScan is deployed, the labor demand by the utility to monitor the system is going to be very low, says Bruskiewicz.

“You won’t need to send crews out into the field to interrogate the unit or to correlate where the leaks are—that will all be done by the system and by the software and you’ll be able to schedule your work as it fits your normal work schedules,” he says.

McCrometer offers the FPI meter, which is “an insertion-style highly accurate meter that is very simply installed and thus can be added to a system quickly and cost effectively,” notes Webster.

Fluid Conservation Systems (FCS) supplies leak detection products, including correlators, to pinpoint position leaks in underground water mains, leak noise loggers to localize a leak’s general area, pressure controllers to minimize leakage, flow/pressure loggers to monitor water supply networks, and ground microphones for leak surveys and leak position confirmation. The latest—and most used of the company’s technologies—is the TriCorr Touch.

Its sensors are designed to provide optimal levels of sensitivity across a wide frequency range in difficult conditions such as on plastic and large-diameter pipes. The stand-alone correlator features a high-visibility full color VGA touch screen. The Automated Filtering Intelligence System (AFIS) automatically runs up to 55 different filter combinations on each correlation. AFIS works with live and pre-recorded correlation data.

The outstation features a magnet to secure onto metallic surfaces and high-quality long-range radio transmission. Units can be stowed with sensors still connected for faster field deployment.

Doug Sangermano, customer support manager for Fluid Conservation Systems, trains utility workers to use the system. He says one drawback to outsourcing leak detection is the time and potential additional costs it might take to get someone to respond to an emergency. “If a utility has the equipment in-house, it can immediately address the problem,” says Sangermano.

On the other hand, Sangermano notes that one of the biggest challenges he sees in utilities is a lack of personnel to tend to the necessary tasks. “A lot of utilities might have 20 guys and they don’t replace the retired ones, but divvy up the work among everyone else. It’s difficult sometimes to find somebody who has the time to go out and do it,” he says.

Mueller Water Products’ Echologics system is acoustic technology used to detect leaks and assess water pipe conditions to help utilities reduce non-revenue water, improve water conservation, prioritize capital spending, better understand water infrastructure, and pinpoint leaks on pipes of all sizes and materials. Echologics not only manufactures leak detection equipment such as correlators and leak listeners, but also provides leak detection services to municipalities.

In June 2014, the company rolled out a new fixed pipeline monitoring technology, EchoShore. The technology can be applied on critical transmission mains to monitor the pipe 24/7 and alert the utility when leaks arise.

Another new product is the Echologics LeakFinderST leak detection correlator, designed for engineers to accurately pinpoint “quiet” leaks. “The automatic noise filter and velocity calculator is highly accurate in pinpointing leaks on any pipe materials or multiple pipe types, avoiding dry holes,” says Anotha Thamesh, marketing and communications manager. “The PC-based software platform and streamlined graphical user interface makes it easy to determine leak position, which optimizes operator experience and confidence,” Thamesh adds.

Thamesh says that 30–50% of water is lost through aging infrastructure. “Most leaks do not surface and can be leaking for a long time before a main break occurs. Early detection of leaks not only reduces water loss, but also prevents catastrophic water main breaks and emergency repair services,” Thamesh points out.

If utilities have the personnel to do so, they can buy leak detection equipment to efficiently do surveys of distribution mains in-house, says Thamesh.

“For transmission mains and for plastic pipes, municipalities will not have the expertise to do leak detection in-house,” Thamesh adds. “Leaks in transmission mains—as well as plastic pipes—are very quiet and hard to listen for. This is when leak detection experts need to be hired.”

Outsourced
Some utilities prefer to outsource some or all of the leak detection tasks and choose from among a number of com­panies providing that service.

Wachs Water Services provides water distribution system asset management solutions combining condition assessment and rehabilitation services for valves, hydrants, and water mains with the capture and integration of critical water asset GIS information. “We’re working with clients in some really challenging situations,” notes Ryan McKeon, vice president of strategy and tech­nol­ogy. McKeon notes that it is no coinci­dence that many clients are located in areas aligned with the moderate-to-severe classification of the US Department of Agriculture’s Drought Monitor index.

“In Texas and in southwest Colorado on the other side of the Continental Divide, it’s been really dry,” McKeon notes. “It’s turned around in Puerto Rico recently, but a few months ago, they too were running into some shortages.”

When looking at the benefits of conducting leak detection, “the industry norm is to compare the cost to find and fix leaks versus the potential savings in terms of the avoided production cost of the saved water, which is not the retail cost to customers, but simply the cost to treat it and push it out there,” notes McKeon. However, those in the industry are examining additional costs on top of the production costs, he adds.

“That makes the ROI [return on investment] a little bit more favorable, and that’s one of the reasons we see this market growing,” he says. “Many main breaks start as background leaks that develop into a main break over time. It’s not only the cost of the water, but in many cases, the cost of the collateral damage due to the main break. Some people are starting to look at cost avoidance of main breaks and tying that back to a return on an investment in leak detection.”

Wachs Water Services not only documents the leaks, but also the sounding points. “It offers the substantial leverage effect of having asset management data and the value that comes from that in addition to finding the leaks,” says McKeon. “It’s validating the existing system assets as you’re going and finding new assets that weren’t even recorded on the maps.” For example, crews typically find up to 3% additional valves during the leak detection process, he adds.

Other key work orders created via this leak survey include system defects such as broken lids that could present a safety risk, fire hydrants with broken caps or chains, or valves that are covered over.

“It’s a negligible incremental cost to add that type of data capture as you’re doing leak detection,” says McKeon. “I think it’s going to become the norm because mobile GIS technology has developed to the point where leak detection technicians can be very cost effective data capture resources.”

Scott says his company has found that most utilities don’t have their service connections documented in GIS. “With some customers moving to PVC piping, we have to listen to a greater number of service connections to be effective,” he says. “We’ll document every service connection that we listen to—every valve, every fire hydrant, any air releases, or blow-offs—via a customized mobile application.

“We digitize all of our records and all the lines that run under the street and give the utility an extrapolated framework of the water system mapping that’s in a GIS format. We deliver a usable version of this geodatabase that we create.”

The staff in-house has access to a national database of all of the company’s projects and can view data as it is populated in real time. Each utility can securely access its own water system data in real time for project management.

Wachs Water Services operates across multiple platforms of leak detection equipment. “We’ve learned through thorough testing that all of the equipment is comparable but not quite created equal,” says Scott. “There are some niches that each manufacturer has, and some key differences that one correlator has over another. We want to use what’s best, not necessarily cutting-edge, but proven. If it hasn’t been proven to a level that is satisfactory to us, we will bring representatives in, do some field testing and observe it in controlled conditions. If we believe it provides a superior result, we’ll make that acquisition to add it to our toolbox.”

Currently, Wachs Water Services uses technology from Fluid Conservation Systems, Sewerin, SubSurface Leak Detection, and Vivax-Metrotech. Scott says the company is looking to expand its offerings this year.

“We may have our favorites, but you need other tools because you never know what you’re going to run into,” says Scott.

The company also has a variety of pipeline locators. “Accuracy is essential in pinpointing leaks,” says Scott. “You need to take linear measurements with the correlator to pinpoint the distance between two sectors, and then account for the pipe diameter in computing the location of the leak. It’s part of our ability to succeed in an industry that’s as much art as it is science.”

One factor a utility should take into consideration when embarking on a leak detection program is the scope and budget for the project. A quick, broad spectrum view would employ the option of doing a hydrant-only or an intersection-level survey where there’s linear distance between listening points. “That would factor in to what listening devices we would employ,” says Scott.

Pressure is a second factor. “The operating pressure plays a factor because as the pressure increases, the amplitude of the leak also increases,” he says. “All else being equal, leaks at lower pressures create a less intense noise signature and that’s going to help choose the best tool for the job.”

“The scope is the actual pipe materials within that water system,” he says. “If we’re going to be surveying a system that’s 85, 90% PVC pipeline or the softer, non-metallic pipeline, that’s going to require a much different approach than if it were cast or ductile iron or steel main.”

Crews know through the sound characteristics of varying type materials what the leak sounds like in terms of its actual frequency, says Scott.

“We try to analyze that, understanding the characteristics of the leak noise and the signatures that they all have,” he adds. “They’re unique in the fact that no leak is the same. No main break is exactly the same. But they have some specific frequency signatures and ranges that you expect across the different pipe materials.”

For example, PVC pipe will be lower on the frequency band than a steel main, says Scott.

American Leak Detection works on both sides of the meter. “Sometimes we’re helping the homeowner with their own problem and they’re very motivated to take care of it, especially if they have a high water bill,” says Patti Godwin, owner of American Leak Detection serving Spokane and Eastern Washington.

“Sometimes we’re working on the other side of the meter, helping the utilities themselves to find their leaks.”

Godwin’s office services everything from small towns with less than 8 miles of pipe to larger communities of 100 and 300 miles of pipe. After American Leak Detection does a survey, the utility is given a report indicating what part of the water distribution system we reviewed and the location of existing and potential leaks.

“Their repair crew comes back right behind us and handles those repairs,” says Godwin. “Our work goes after the real loss. There are other places where the water is hidden—that is the apparent loss. It could be in the meter reading or the data entry on the billing side.”

Godwin says the impetus for utilities to do leak detection is often driven by state regulations. She remembers when she first started out in the business that the idea of a regular leak detection program didn’t appeal to many utility representatives. “Now, in the state of Washington, there are requirements where you have to have things in place, you have to submit what your water loss is and report how much you’re losing and if you’re losing at a certain threshold, what are you doing to remedy that,” she says.

Godwin also serves on the AWWA Water Loss Control Committee. “I’m extremely passionate about making sure that the water systems not only do leak detection to find the real leaks, but that they also do water audits and address whether their high loss is in fact real loss or if it’s apparent loss,” she says. “It’s getting more sophisticated every day.”

Godwin’s office utilizes equipment from Fluid Conservation Systems.

It’s not just the equipment that’s critical to the success of a leak detection program, but also the person operating it, she points out.

“I hear often where a water district will buy equipment and they’ll have one or two guys working it and the employee moves on to another department and the equipment goes up on the shelf,” she says. “It is equipment-based, but it’s also the experience of doing it day in and day out.”

What to Look for When Choosing a Leak Detection System
In choosing the best approach for a leak detection program, utility managers need to consider the human resources they can commit to help determine the most appropriate types of leak detection technologies to employ, says Boyer.

“The leak detection industry provides equipment to conduct both leak localization and leak pinpointing,” adds Boyer. “Leak localization is typically accomplished by trained staff surveying the water distribution system with microphones listening for leak noise on valves and fittings.

“Since the early 2000s, many utilities have begun using sophisticated leak noise loggers to listen to large portions, or the entirety, of the water distribution system. Leak noise loggers systems can be read remotely by manufacturers’ reading equipment or via AMR or AMI systems.”

Time and resources are key factors to consider when choosing a leak detection system, says Itron’s Ball. With technology such as that offered by Itron, utilities can leverage the power of their AMI system and remotely collect reads from leak sensors on the distribution line, he adds. “With the ability to monitor the system in real time, utilities can find and resolve leaks faster, avoiding what could end up as a costly main break and more quickly recovering wasted water,” he says.

Water utilities should look for easy-to-use correlators that even a new operator can be trained to use quickly, says Echologics’ Thamesh. “Correlators need to be able to consistently find leaks accurately, otherwise municipalities will be wasting money on digging dry holes,” he adds.

How Often to Monitor
How often a leak detection program should be conducted depends on the availability and cost to treat and distribute water, says Wachs’ McKeon.

“Where you’ve got abundant source water in a place like in Baltimore on the East Coast, it’s a different formula than it is in Texas,” he points out. “An extreme example of high-cost leakage would be on an island in the Caribbean that has significant energy costs to run a desalination plant. You’ve really got to look at what it costs to not do it. It can be highly variable, depending on a number of factors.

“We work with a utility on the west coast that surveys each of its 220 miles of distribution every year religiously. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s a utility in the northeast that targets 10% of their system a year. Both of those places are on the right schedule given their circumstances.”

One trend McKeon notes is that when utilities take the time to do leak detection, they are frequently pairing it up with asset management activities.

“It’s a perfect opportunity,” he says. “You’ve already got eyes and ears that are physically assessing the water system performing leak detection, capturing data, and validating other GIS attributes. We’ve seen in many places where we’re doing a leak detection project where the client may be spending dollars on another project simultaneously to do something like a hydrant inventory. There is tremendous value in pairing those things up.”

In establishing a leak detection program, Aclara’s Bruskiewicz advises utilities to map out their systems, start at the worst case area, get that area under control, and then start branching out.

Aclara offers free water audits to its end users and potential end users. A utility chooses the best approach by examining its intentions, says Bruskiewicz. While many utilities have leak detection conducted on an annual basis, “unless it’s a large utility, that may not be economically possible to do,” he adds.

Typically, a program is set up to break up the distribution system into zones for inspection in such a way that each zone will be examined at least once a year during the rotation.

Leak detection also is contingent upon the program a utility has in place. “Does the utility have the manpower where it can dedicate a crew to leak detection? If it doesn’t have an AMI network, crews will have to monitor the loggers on a daily or weekly basis and interrogate these units. It depends on the utility’s plan and manpower. We would work with that utility to find out what its needs and desires are and then tailor a system to match that.”

Utility managers and field supervisors know their distribution systems “like the back of their hand, so I tell them to start at the areas they know or believe to have the most issues,” says Bruskiewicz.

It’s not always based on the age of the pipe, he says. “It could be based on the soil that the pipe is in, when the pipe was installed. When we installed water mains back in the 1950s and 1960s, we installed them pretty quickly because of the Baby Boom and some of the practices weren’t near they ways we are installing pipe today,” says Bruskiewicz.

Aclara’s system prioritizes leaks for the utility. “We rank them one through 10, based on the severity of the leak and the type of signal we receive,” says Bruskiewicz. “By looking at their dashboard, they’ll know where they need to go first, second, third through 10.”

Utility managers look at how the software is quantifying the leak and as they’re watching the dashboard, they get to know by looking at the signal the loggers bring back to the dashboard what is happening with the leak.

“If the signal starts to spread out, the sound starts to drop on it, you’re going to know that that leak is getting larger,” says Bruskiewicz. “Even though it still may not be coming to the surface, this leak is not fixing itself, which they never do.”

That knowledge enables utility managers to schedule the leak for repair. “The nice thing about leak detection systems are that they give the utility the time to schedule that repair,” says Bruskiewicz. “If they wait until it comes to the surface, which a lot of utilities do, then it becomes an emergency repair. Those usually happen on holidays, on weekends, overnight, so that just adds to the cost of the repair.

“With the leak detection system, you can monitor and schedule it on your terms and try to get the most efficiency. Maybe you can bring a crew in and do three or four of them at one time. It really gives the utility a lot of options and allows flexibility.”

While some water utilities engage in a scheduled leak detection program that examines certain sectors at specific times, utilizing a permanently-installed sensor such as that offered by Itron means the entire distribution system can be monitored at once, says Ball.

“Because you never know where or when a new leak may occur, the leak sensor is designed to be permanently installed,” Ball points out. “Factors such as pipe age, date of installation, type of material, location, and pipe dimensions are not always the best predictor of where leaks may exist.”

Sangermano recommends that a system be surveyed within two years. Any longer, and a pipe leak that goes undetected may present a bigger problem, he adds. Sangermano says old cast iron pipes, found more on the East Coast, are presenting the most leaks. “Nothing lasts forever,” he points out. “There are pipes that have been in the ground since the late 1800s.”

“A reactive approach doesn’t work for leak detection,” says Sangermano. “A lot of utilities want to be able to find a leak accurately so they’re not tearing an entire street up trying to find it.”

Reducing non-revenue water may be another goal.

Thamesh agrees that conducting leak surveys every two years is a sound practice. “Leaks can happen anytime. If it is a critical transmission main or reaching its end of life, then we recommend permanent pipeline monitoring,” Thamesh adds.

American Leak Detection suggests that utilities split a system into quadrants and address one particular quarter of the system every year, if not twice a year. “After four years, you’re starting again on the first section and then you have the funds available for repair,” says Godwin. “You’re doing it in quadrants so that you can keep up with the repairs.”

Preferably, system monitoring should be permanent and the data available in real time, says Webster. “The question is more of a matter of when the utility can put together a plan to address leakage and associated water loss, which, in essence, equals revenue loss,” he adds.

Boyer agrees that leak detection should be done on a constant basis. “Utilities should expect the meter reading and software system they put in place to continually monitor incoming data for potential leaks,” says Boyer. “In-house programs should be devised to allow for constant leak detection surveying in order to stay ahead of the leak curve. Outsourced surveys are recommended every two to three years, depending upon the total mileage of pipe and number of service connections, age of water distribution system infrastructure, and system leak history.”

Pay Now or Pay Later
As “leaks don’t fix themselves,” leak detection becomes an issue of ‘pay now or pay later’, McKeon points out. There also is the cost of finding and harvesting new water sources, which McKeon notes is happening in Texas. The situation there is a reminder that there is a cost not only in treating the existing water sources—typically pennies on gallons of water, McKeon notes—but costs to finding new sources, which can run into billions of dollars.

“People are taking a hard look at trying to squeeze the last few points out of their non-revenue water to try to push off the billions they’re going to have to spend to farm new sources,” he adds.

In considering making an upfront investment in leak detection, “unfortunately, many utilities still consider leak detection a reactive art utilized only when active leaks are observed or catastrophic leaks occur,” says Badger Meter’s Anderson.

“Still, many utilities consider proactive leak detection programs a luxury that only the largest utilities can afford,” she adds. “All systems, regardless of size or resources, can benefit from some level of proactive leak detection.”

Additionally, leak detection research and real-life projects demonstrate quick and profitable paybacks for utilities willing to make an investment in leak detection programs.

“Active leak detection and water loss remediation programs prevent loss of revenue and save utilities money—they can pay now and provide savings for later,” says Anderson.

Leaks can quietly sneak up into a major problem. “Let’s say your utility charges its customers $6 per thousand gallons. There’s a five-gallon per minute leak—which is not a big leak and is less than running a garden hose in your yard. That’s the type of leak that goes unnoticed. In one year, that leak could cost a utility up to $17,000,” says Bruskiewicz.

Multiply that by the potentially dozens of leaks that go undetected in the distribution system annually and the losses increase to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, he adds. Most leak detection systems will come in well under that cost and so you are way ahead,” he adds. “You’re going to pay one way or the other, so you may as well run your system efficiently and have a good leak detection program in place.”

In previous times, when a utility needed more money for a budget shortfall, it raised rates, Bruskiewicz points out. “We can’t do that today because of all of the situations going on with the economy and with the drought,” he adds. “You can’t raise taxes because people don’t want to pay the taxes. You need to look at what’s the cost of leakage to your system.” Leak detections help quantify that cost.

“The leak detection program will pay for itself over time and make a utility a much more efficient water utility,” says Bruskiewicz.

While most infrastructure failures are happening on cast iron pipe that was installed from the 1950s through the early 1970s, “we’re getting a lot more response from out West because of the drought situation,” Bruskiewicz notes. “We’re getting some more requests up in the North because of last year’s severe winter, where there was severe frost, which puts pressure on cast iron pipe and causes failures.”

Municipalities are essentially paying now—not necessarily for the technology to detect leaks, but for not having it, Webster points out.

“Many aren’t being paid for up to 50% of the water they currently produce,” he says. “By reducing the water loss, they can significantly reduce their operating costs on electricity, chemical dosing and labor. So the question isn’t really pay now or pay later—it’s how long will they keep paying?”

Ultimately, it’s incumbent upon water utilities to engage in leak detection to meet today’s water supply challenges, industry experts say.

Bruskiewicz says that while some utilities in the West are penalizing customers for “improper” water use, “if a utility is going to do that, then that utility should have a good leak detection program in place to demonstrate they also are a good steward of their water, able to sustain their resources, and be very transparent to the public on how they’re running their leak detection program. That would go a long way on educating all on the proper use of water.”

American Leak Detection’s Godwin agrees. It’s no longer a case of utilities telling homeowners to “use less water with shorter showers,” Godwin adds. “Now they’re realizing that they need to take care of their own infrastructure,” she says. “The wake-up call is happening.”