Getting Serious

Water loss is gaining ever more attention as a serious problem. What innovative steps are you taking to detect and stop leaks?

While in college I sometimes worked in the cafeteria dish room, scraping plates and running food scraps down the garbage disposal. One day an exchange student from Africa saw half-finished hamburgers, bowls mostly full of vegetables, entire cookies, and all manner of other items headed for those iron jaws.

Staring in disbelief, he observed, “People in my country would kill for this food.”

Now imagine a visitor from a water-starved country (and there are many of those) observing how much drinking water some of our communities waste. Might his or her reaction be much the same?

On the radar

Most water utilities have been concerned for years about water losses — it’s a matter of economics. But as water scarcity begins to hit home, even in parts of generally water-rich countries like the United States, the concern is growing.

Of course, in an important way, wasting water is not the same as wasting natural gas or oil, or dumping valuable metals into a landfill. Water that’s wasted isn’t gone — it goes back into the earth, or into the air through evaporation, by way of the miracle of the water cycle. So when drinking water is lost through leakage or profligate use, what we really lose is the energy and money needed to treat, pump and distribute it.

But that’s not to excuse waste — which according to various studies is rampant all over the world. The American Water Works Association, in its 2007 State of the Industry Report, estimated losses at 10 to 20 percent in water distribution systems throughout the United States.

In a report on reducing non-revenue water, the World Bank estimated that 32 billion cubic meters of treated water — that’s 8.4 trillion gallons — leaks from water distribution networks each year, half of it in developed countries.

The report estimated the cost of leaks, in reduced revenues and increased operational costs, at more than $14 billion a year. The report also said a 50 percent reduction in non-revenue water would save enough to provide eight billion cubic meters — 2.2 trillion gallons — to serve customers and supply water to 90 million more people.

(I know, it’s not that simple: to supply those additional people, there would have to be a way to get the water to them. But the point remains.)

Experts convene

The problem is serious, and the world is taking notice. In June, 400 leading global water professionals gathered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, for the International Water Association (IWA) Water Loss 2010 conference. At that meeting, the association established an IWA Specialist Group.

Tim Waldron of Wide Bay Water, Australia, interim chairman of the group, stated, “In order to reduce water losses and future water demand, the specialist group will continue to develop strategies to manage water loss and make the results of its work available to stakeholders, including water industry governance groups, utilities and employees, associated individuals and companies, and community representatives at all levels of government, including national and international agencies.”

Water Loss 2010 was the sixth in a series of speciality conferences organized by the IWA Water Loss Task Force. Another global IWA meeting on Water Loss was to be held Sept. 19-24 at the IWA World Water Congress and Exhibition in Montreal, Quebec.

Acting locally

That’s what is happening globally. What is happening locally — in your community? Municipal Sewer & Water reports regularly on community and utility managers doing exemplary work to maintain and rehabilitate underground infrastructure.

We’re especially interested in innovative methods — whether that means new technologies, better applications of old ones, or initiatives to enhance staff performance or enlist the public behind infrastructure programs.

For right now, let’s talk about drinking water. What is your community or utility doing — in innovative ways — to find and fix water leaks and otherwise reduce water waste and water losses?

Send a note to editor@mswmag.com and briefly tell us your story. I promise to respond, and we will report on some of the most exciting initiatives in future issues.



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