| Controlling water loss more critical than ever
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Controlling water loss more critical than ever

With a prolonged drought impacting California, media from throughout North America have taken a renewed interest in how much water leaks out from utility pipes.

Steve CavanaughThe issue is not new to AWWA. In fact, the association’s Water Loss Control Committee has been helping utilities manage their non-revenue water picture for many years. Today, AWWA makes free water audit software available for download, helping utilities prioritize system improvements that make their operations more efficient.

AWWA Connections sat down with Steve Cavanaugh, chair of the WLC’s outreach and education subcommittee, to better understand why adopting water loss control programs can be so helpful to utilities, regardless of whether they are water rich or water challenged.

Q. Why would a utility with plenty of water be concerned about Water Loss Control?

There are many drivers that compel a utility to embrace the AWWA M36 best practices of managing non-revenue water. Sometimes those are environmental, where the source of the supply is constrained and utilities are scrambling to find new sources of water. Water loss control and managing every gallon properly reaches a high level of scrutiny during times like these. Politically, rate payers can become more concerned about the effective use of water and ways in which the rates are being charged. If a utility is not properly managing leakage (real loss) or assuring that every customer is paying their fair share through proper metering and billing practices (apparent loss), then the rate payers are paying more than they should for water. This can compel a utility to make sure that they can benchmark and show that they are being efficient and economically effective in managing the utility. The final reason is financial. As utilities embrace tighter budgets and pressure based on lowered per capita demand, reducing non-revenue water and turning that into revenue water becomes an even more compelling business practice.

Q. Are utilities increasingly interested in conducting water audits? Why or why not?

The outreach and education effort of the Water Loss Control Committee has been extremely effective in educating utilities through conferences, workshops, and technical discussions on the tools available and the value of implementing NRW best practices. In addition, regulators, state associations and advocacy groups are also being informed to drive the awareness and understanding of conducting water audits and more proactively managing the utility. So my answer is yes, utilities are becoming more interested in conducting water audits. There is an excellent coordinated effort underway led by the outreach subcommittee of the AWWA Water Loss Control Committee.

Q. How much progress are we making in this area as a water community?

Progress is significant. Six states have annual requirements for submission of water audits. There is a strong movement now with 26 other states that are looking at rewriting or replacing their outdated performance indicators to require or incentivize annual audits and economic levels of intervention to reduce NRW. Finally, we are making headway in eliminating the percentage of system input volume parameter.

Q. Why is water loss as a percentage of total water supply a misleading figure?

Simply stated, it is mathematically flawed. Water loss as a percentage of system input volume is highly sensitive to changes in customer consumption, and therefore changes in this metric more often than not fail to reflect true changes in water loss. This is why AWWA abandoned it in 2003. The M36 Methodology provides a comprehensive “Water Balance” methodology with a suite of metrics that matter – water loss shown in terms of volume, value and validity.

Q. In a perfect world, what would utilities like to see happen in the area of water loss control?

This answer comes in two parts. Utilities that have implemented non-revenue water management business practices and annual water audits (early adopters) would like to see improvements in data validation meaning improving the accuracy of the data that is reported. This includes the use of field-testing activities to verify the system input volumes. All utilities would like to see enhancements in education, training and technical assistance available to them.

 

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