When maintenance crews popped the lid to inspect one of the 12 pumping stations for the Pasadena Park Irrigation District #17 in Spokane Valley, Wash., the water level was at the top of the valve, and there was a dead mouse floating on the surface.

District manager Kathleen Small knew there were concerns with the aging water system, but no one knew the depth of issues about to be uncovered.

Formed in 1910 to irrigate local farmland, the district has grown to a 95 percent residential customer base. It is one of 18 water purveyors that serve incorporated and unincorporated areas throughout the Spokane Valley.

By 1999, when Small joined the district, deferred maintenance had wreaked havoc on the entire system. The majority of the water mains had been installed before 1950, and an overworked and underfunded three-person staff had done little to maintain them. In addition, there were no accurate records on more than 1,500 connections established by 1999. The result? Water loss. How much? Nobody was quite sure.

Small responded by leading her team in a long-term initiative to identify the sources of water loss and make comprehensive repairs to the system. As a result, water losses that once exceeded 50 percent have been reduced to less than 10 percent. Expenses are down, revenue has grown, and the district is well positioned for the future.

Small system, big challenge

The Pasadena Park Irrigation District #17 has nearly 5,600 customer connections and 23.7 miles of water main. Its system also includes four wells, eight booster pump stations, six reservoirs, and 4 million gallons of storage.

Before joining the district, Small had worked for the Moab Irrigation District in Newman Lake, Wash., starting in 1979 as a meter reader/installer and working up the ranks to manager. Her first objective at Pasadena Park was to figure out how to increase pumping capacity to supply customer needs. Small found that five of the 12 pumping and booster stations were held together with “baling wire and duct tape” and were either non-operational or functioning inefficiently.

To her surprise, she also discovered that there had been no up-to-date water audit — only manual water audits that were highly inaccurate. The billing system was so untrustworthy that the secretary at the time was keeping accounts by hand as well as with the computer software because she didn’t trust the technology.

The board ordered Small to get that billing system in order as soon as possible. By the first of the year in 2000, a new billing system was up and running. When the data was collected for 2000, it showed a striking difference between water pumped and water sold. Because that was the first year with accurate data, Small decided to look at things for one more year before acting.

By the end of 2002, records showed the district had lost nearly 45 percent of water pumped during summer, and lost over 75 gallons for every 100 gallons pumped during winter. Small and her crew had a mystery to solve: Where was the water going? The board wanted physical proof rather than just numbers. Small took it personally.

She went to the office at 11 p.m. in the middle of November, when water use would be minimal, and watched the reservoirs. “I confirmed 80 percent of what was happening just by watching and recording the reservoirs’ levels,” she recalls.

“I understood the board’s concern, because we were telling them there was a huge water loss and there was going to be a major expenditure associated with it — they needed proof. It put my mind at ease too — I knew exactly where that water was going.”

Step by step

The next step was to look over a map of all the pipes in Tier-One, the service area at the lowest elevation in the district. Tier-One is also the oldest service area and identified as having the greatest water loss. By determining the age of the pipes from the 1940s to the present, potential problem areas based on age and/or type of main were identified. The map showed that since 1960 the district had put in almost no new pipes.

Coming from another rural water system, Small understood the situation. “Funding is tight in small water districts,” she says. “The tendency is that if something isn’t broken, you don’t fix it.” But fixing it was the only solution, and the price was estimated at $5 million.

“With this kind of a water loss it had to be done, but it was a horrible shock to the board,” Small says. “What you have are people who are very knowledgeable and wise, but very, very conservative. When you present them with that kind of money, the initial reaction is, ‘Wow! What? Why? How?’ When I came in 1999, their budget was $600,000. They didn’t know how they were going to cover the cost. It was like trying to shove a pig through a snake.” The board agreed to a three-step plan.

Step 1: Fix the worst first. With the help of the eastern region staff of the state Department of Health, Drinking Water Division, the district received loans with rates as low as 1.5 percent from the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Program to repair the worst of the system immediately.

Step 2: Pay off the loans. The board raised rates to support repayment.

Step 3: End deferred maintenance. The rate increases included money for yearly infrastructure upkeep and replacement of old meters.

Creative leak detection

The first third of the project involved replacing $2.3 million worth of pipe. To economize and make the most of the funds, new pipe was to be installed concurrently with a city sewer repair project.

Before pipe could be laid, though, the entire district would ­have to be tested for leaks. The district hired the Spokane branch of American Leak Detection to search for leaks during winter when usage was lower and losses were easier to pinpoint. Winter is also a slower time for the district field maintenance crew, which Small increased from one worker to four so that they could work with the leak detection specialists.

Locating pipes was a challenge. The mapping was deficient, and much of it consisted of maps hand-drawn by the previous manager. The map filing system was literally a large pile on the floor.

Crews contracted and worked with American Leak Detection Spokane who used Fluid Conservation Systems’ correlation gear to search Tier-One for leaks. The majority of the leaks were found using this method, but visual identification was also helpful and that’s where Small’s “farm girl” thinking came into play.

“I’m practical and look for signs,” she says. “I told the guys that one of the quickest ways to spot a big leak is to look at the trees as you drive down the road. If you see a tree that is disproportionately tall, it’s a likely spot for a leak because the tree may have a direct tap into a leak area. In one instance we found a slow-growing locust tree that was as big around as a Volkswagen.”

To make matters worse, river rock on the valley floor was so porous that water leaked for years before it started to surface. One customer reported that he had been hearing running water for 20 years.

Cast iron lead-joint pipe proved to be the biggest culprit. The cast iron was intact, but the lead joints had deteriorated, creating leaks at nearly every connection. “We started referring to it as underground soaker hose,” Small says. “Leaks were so numerous in some stretches of pipe that we just had to take a leap of faith and get it out of the ground as quickly as possible. In places where we pulled the pipe out, it had been leaking for so long that the soil had rotted. Have you ever smelled a swamp?”

Taking control

Over three years, the district worked with a local contractor, Eller Corp. of Newman Lake, Wash., replacing cast iron lead-joint pipe with C900 PVC, which would resist cathodic corrosion in the district’s highly acidic soils. In the process, crews found some service connections that had never been metered. The district had evolved from a rural community, and some properties had both a meter for the home and an irrigation meter.

In addition, the majority of the water meters had not been changed out in the last 40 years, and many were inaccurate or not working. When Small started with the district, there were 240 dead meters. “Basically nobody was keeping an eye on them,” she recalls.

The district replaced broken and outdated meters with Dialog 3G-DS PD water meters from Master Meter. Besides being more accurate, the wireless AMR meters allowed field technicians to detect leaks in the homes.

“You can do a graph on water usage right from the truck,” says field technician Rusty Widman. “We even showed one of the board members that he had a leak and was losing seven gallons an hour.”

Crews also discovered that the existing system had a lack of valves, as well as valves that they didn’t know existed. “The valves that we didn’t know about are really important in order to do efficient shut downs,” Small says.

Forward progress

“What you have to remember is that we had more than one problem,” Small observes. “We had facilities in disrepair, leaky pipes, dead meters, and under-performing personnel. You cannot just do it all at once. You have to take it a step at a time. From a management standpoint, I felt like I had a squirt gun at a forest fire.”

But by 2004, the district’s actions were paying off. That year, leakage was down to 37 percent of the 2002 loss. Continuing efforts have reduced water loss to less than 10 percent. The district has now replaced nine of its 23.7 miles of water mains, and plans to replace about three more miles by the end of 2010.

Rates have been raised enough to help repay the loans and build reserves for future maintenance. But with accurate billing in place, there was little for customers to complain about. “When we started to raise rates, there was some negative feedback, but we expected an onslaught and we didn’t get it,” Small says. “Most customers didn’t even know the problems existed. I can point to one account that got about $3,500 worth of free water over a 10 year period.”

Looking back, district staff estimated the annual value water loss at $55,000, plus an estimated yearly cost of $20,000 for pumping. By plugging the leaks and increasing the efficiency of the system, Small estimated the district could save $75,000 a year.

As the district now sells to some 400 additional homes, they are gaining $145,000 per year, which is paying for the majority of the loans. And the district still has water in reserve for future growth.

“We only have a certain amount of water rights, and Washington State isn’t granting any more,” Small says. “If we hadn’t recaptured this, our future for growth would have been minimal.” As it stands, the district has a healthy distribution system and a sound business foundation as it looks to a new decade of service.