Drip, Drip. Drip

The city and a homeowner had a water leak here lately, and just wanted to share the story. Our Water Superintendent Nathan informed the city council at our last meeting that he thought we had a leak somewhere. Our city's water usage climbed noticeably, though it hadn't taken a jump in billed water used. (as an aside, we track water pumped and treated each day).

Often times, water main leaks show themselves, by wet ground, or water bubbling up. Nathan drove around town, and could not find any issues.

A few days after the council meeting, a citizen called to mention that their sump pump was running constantly, and was wondering if there was a water leak. However their water usage had not gone up. Nathan went out, turned off the water to their house, and the sump pump quit running.

As it turns out, the circa 1920s (I think) service line to their house broke. It was before the meter, so the citizen didn't get billed for the water. However, it was after the curbstop, so the citizen was responsible for fixing the water line to their house.

So the city had to pump and treat a whole bunch of water at the city's cost that didn't get billed. The estimate was that 620,000 gallons of water were lost. If that had been on the resident's side of the meter, the bill would have been around $3800.

As a comparison, the swimming pool holds about 180,000 gallons of water, and the water tower holds 240,000 gallons of water. So over 2.5 "water towers" were spilled into the ground. No wonder the sump pump was running!