Yuma's water system loses a billion gallons per year

Roughly a billion gallons of water goes unaccounted for each year for the city of Yuma, but utilities manager Hank Baer said this loss is normal and the cost to ratepayers remains minimal.

The water may be considered an unaccounted-for loss, but that doesn't mean that Baer has no idea where it goes - he said it is used by the Yuma and Rural/Metro fire departments, taken by theft or, in some cases, lost through leakage. The city compares its metered production to metered sales to track the loss. "At last check, it was at 11 percent," he said.

The city uses high-powered listening devices to try to locate leaks in pipes. Baer said finding a small drip can be almost impossible, but if a larger leak has occurred, the pressure in the lines will normally make enough noise to find it sooner or later. He said utilities employees regularly conduct leak audits to try to find where loss occurs.

Baer said any water used to fight fires is not counted because the goal is to get water on the fire, not measure how much is used. It is not clear how much theft occurs, but Baer said leaks aren't a big cause of water loss.

"I think leaks account for under 5 percent," he said.

Under a state-imposed cap, cities are not supposed to lose more than 10 percent of their annual water supply due to leaks, theft or incorrect measuring. Baer says that most of the city's loss is due to fire department activities.

In 2006, the city's two water plants pumped out more than 9 billion gallons of water, and an 11 or 12 percent loss would equate to about a billion gallons. Because the city's water system is an enterprise account, the price of the lost water is spread out in the bills of the more than 27,000 metered customers in the system.

All water companies deal with a certain amount of loss. According to Public Works Magazine, most utilities consider a 10-15 percent loss as acceptable. A survey by the magazine found that 70 percent of respondents reported loss rates less than 15 percent.

Baer said the city was dealing with loss rates of up to 25 percent 15 years ago, and it has worked to drop that number. He said a new metering program, leak audits and updating old infrastructure through the Capital Improvement Program have helped the problem.

The old water pipes beneath Main Street were believed to be losing water through leaks. Those lines were replaced in 2006 as part of the project that reopened the street to traffic.

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WATER WISDOM

- 9 billion gallons x 11 percent loss = 990-million-gallon loss

- 990 million gallons x water cost (2.5 cents per 1,000 gallons) = $24,750 loss

- $24,750 loss / 27,000 metered customers = 91.7 cents per customer

In 2006, the city's two water plants pumped out more than 9 billion gallons of water, and an 11 or 12 percent loss would equate to about a billion gallons. Baer said the city gets its water for about 2 cents per 1,000 gallons, and the cost to transmit it to the tap for residents is approximately 2.5 cents per 1,000 gallons.

By multiplying this cost against the 1 billion lost gallons, the total comes out to about $25,000 per year - a rather small amount when one considers that the city has more than 27,000 different metered customers.

However, the city's water utility is more than just the water that runs through it, which it is able to purchase at a relatively inexpensive cost. The new water lines must also be built with funds from ratepayers, since the utility runs as an enterprise account.

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Jeffrey Gautreaux can be reached at jgautreaux@yumasun.com or 539-6858. The Associated Press contributed to this story.