Last updated on 2011.02.11
Help me out, engineering friends. Take a look at this historical chart of Madison's water usage, which appears in the agenda packet for the next commission meeting (Monday, Feb. 14):
Last year the city pumped 329 million gallons of water, the fourth-highest amount in the last two decades. Madison sold 184 million gallons of water, the lowest annual amount over the same period.
The city pumped 145 million gallons that it didn't sell. It can account for 12.5% of that water. That indicates 127 million gallons of water came out of the city pumps and went... where?
Perspective: 127 million gallons would cover 390 acres with one foot of water... or my one-acre yard with 390 feet of water.
127 million gallons not accounted for? Hmm... if I were a Congressperson looking to spend federal dollars to pipe a million gallons a day to Madison via the Lewis and Clark pipeline, I might first ask whether a third of that water would disappear once it hit Madison's infrastructure.
By the way, consider this: DENR says the water industry goal for unaccounted-for water is 10%. Madison hasn't hit that goal once in 21 years.
Major leaks, or hundreds of tiny leaks in the system could account for the loss. Other possibilities are unauthorized taps, backyard hydrants that bypass the meter or buildings hooked up that the city doesn't know about. Is the city pool metered? Does it leak? It might be a combination of all of these things.
You assume that the pipeline will be built. I would not bet money on that happening.
I make no such assumption. Neither should the city... and if we could track down and conserve that missing 30%, how much longer might we be able to postpone the big federal earmark investment in extending that water system to our doorstep?