"Shovel Ready" Water Conservation Infrastructure Projects

All the buzz right now relates to the President's stimulus package that is rightfully focused on America's infrastructure. American Society of Civil Engineers identified a $500 billion gap between infrastructure needs and funding last year, chiefly as a result of aging and poorly maintained pipelines, reservoirs, bridges and streets, and treatment facilities. However, many of these projects are not at the "ready" for construction - aka "shovel ready" ( the current term of art or science) - since there are first needs for studies and planning, permitting and procurement that could delay moving earth and fixing cracks and crevasses for years.

I do believe that the nation's infrastructure has critical needs, and repairing our water and transportation systems, as well as building new facilities to meet the needs of our growing communities are paramount to maintaining our quality of life and meeting our public health standards. However, we have critical infrastructure needs that I fear are not getting the play that they should, related to water conservation and water use efficiency that are in fact shovel ready and can boost the economy by creating jobs, reducing system inefficiencies, and helping to managing our water resources all at the same time. How bad can that be?

I speak of course of managing and tracking non-revenue water by the nation's water providers. Many, and perhaps a large majority, of the nation's water providers do not formally track non-revenue water in their systems. What is non-revenue water? It is the combination of water delivered by the water provider that is either metered by but not charged for (many park and rec departments get water deliveries but don't pay for it), apparent losses (for example when a meter under "reads" an actual water delivery), and real losses (related to leaks in the delivery system). AWWA estimates that real losses in most water provider systems range from 10 to 15% of total water deliveries. That means that as a community, we are investing in the energy and cost to treat billions of gallons of water a day, only to have it be lost in transit. And in some communities the combination of real and apparent losses exceeds 30% of treated water demand. Ouch.

One reason non-revenue water is untracked, relates to the cost of maintaining and upgrading customer meters. Another relates to the cost to install and manage automated meter reading (AMR) devices, which vastly improve the data collection component of leak detection. AMR has been shown to not only be useful to identify leaks at individual customer connections (like leaking toilets or broken pipes), but it also allows for tracking and identifying distribution system leaks.

The cost to install AMR technology is not inconsequential. Five thousand taps go for about $1 million, or about $200 per tap. Then there is the cost to develop a mechanism for data acquisition and mining, so leaks can be identified and managed, and billings can be supported. New meters, which for large taps (2-inches or greater) should be installed at least once per every five to ten years, are also an expense that some water providers can ill afford.

But what is the cost of not maintaining meters and upgrading to AMR technology? If it is 5% of the nation's drinking water, that is perhaps 3 billion gallons of water a day or slightly over 3 million acre-feet per year, lost from our water provider distribution systems. Just in Colorado, reducing real losses from by 5% of total M&I water deliveries could provide for about 40,000 acre-feet per year. That is about $800 million in lost delivered water costs in today's water market. These are savings that can be realized in a matter of years. What is the planning horizon for a new 40,000 acre-foot reservoir in the state?

New meters and AMR installations are shovel ready, installing and managing the data they obtain creates jobs, and responding to the data saves water. Can we afford not to move toward a substantial investment in managing our non-revenue water?

There are other water conservation related projects as well - toilet replacements, showerhead and faucet aerator upgrades to high efficiency equipment, cooling water tower retrofits and operating improvements, irrigation system improvements, just to name a few - that can be implemented to save water today, without permits or substantial planning needs, and at a fraction of the cost of new water deliveries. Seems like we have plenty of options to improve our water use efficiency as part of the stimulus package. I hope that the word gets out.