54 percent of Belen’s water was unaccounted for
September 25, 2009
The City of Belen records nearly 30 millions of gallons of water use in any given month, but in December approximately 54 percent of the total water use was lost, with the sources of the loss unknown to city officials at the time.
“I would say three or four years ago, we noticed their unaccounted use was higher than ideal,” said Carole Christiano with Lee Wilson & Associates, a Santa Fe water rights consulting firm, adding, “We’ve sort of embarked upon a multi-pronged approach to see if we can get that number down.”
In 2008, unaccounted water use was consistently more than 40 percent of total use. This year the number has dropped closer to 30 percent.
In December, for example, the water use spiked to approximately 40 million gallons, up 10 million gallons from the previous month. That month the city billed for around 18 million gallons. The rest — 21 million gallons of water — was unaccounted for.
Some months are higher. Some are lower, like last month when 22 percent was lost.
A Mid-Region Council of Governments (MRCOG) official said the amount of water lost in Belen is significant in comparison to other places.
“Belen has one of the leakiest water systems I’ve seen in the region,” Joe Quintana said. “We’re trying to figure out where you’re losing it.”
The city government, along with Lee Wilson & Associates, has determined some of the reasons for the high amount of water loss, but hasn’t identified all of the sources.
The city identified the cause of December’s high water loss: a malfunctioning water well and tank. In the latter half of 2008, the automatic shut-off valve for water being pumped from a city well into a city tank malfunctioned. Water was continually pumped into the tank, overflowing into an arroyo.
Robert Rimorin, the city’s utilities director, said as soon as the city was made aware of the problem it was addressed.
Other possible causes include unauthorized hookups. For every five connections to city water, two have been identified as illegal, Christiano said.
She said the city has old pipes. A company will be analyzing the pipes with sonar in November to see if they find any leaks.
“We’ve actually found old oak pipes that were installed back in the day,” said Andrew DiCamillo, who works with the city’s planning and zoning department.
The city also has meters giving inaccurate readings. The city has been slowly changing meters from manual to electronic, to get more accurate readings.
Another problem is the city’s software for managing the readings, which doesn’t indicate when a meter is read and not billed for use. For example, a local park with substantial water use was giving a reading at its meter but wasn’t showing up in the software during the billing process.
The impact of the water loss is not only in lost water, but a chilling relationship with the Office of the State Engineer, which oversees water use in New Mexico.
The American Water Works Association, a national nonprofit overseeing water issues, expects no more than 10 percent of water to be unaccounted in a municipality.
“If you have 10 percent, you get a gold star,” Christiano said. “That’s kind of what you’re aiming for.”
Any unaccounted use higher than that means the state engineer could deny future water diversions for the city. It has a direct impact, for instance, on new developments like Rancho Cielo. Because of the high percentage of water loss, the state engineer could deny the city any additional water diversions for Rancho Cielo.
“The city has transferred in enough water rights to meet their 40-year demand,” Christiano said. “If they feel they need to transfer in more water rights, for example, for this new Rancho Cielo subdivision and they need to file a new application for a water rights permit so they can transfer in additional water rights, one of the big issues the state engineer is concerned about is this unaccounted use.”
Christiano said the state engineer would prefer the city fix its unaccounted use as the solution to having enough water for Belen’s growth, instead of not dealing with the water loss by requesting new water rights transfers.
“The right thing to do is to get the unaccounted use down to a low number,” she said, not only to satisfy the state engineer, but in terms of preserving a natural resource.
Every gallon of water the city pumps also costs the city a fee it pays to the state. By fixing the problem, the city saves money that can be put toward other things.
“You want to reduce it from a global perspective. You want to reduce it from a financial perspective,” she said of the unaccounted use. “And you want to demonstrate to the state engineer that you’re using the resource in the best possible manner.”
Posted in: Infrastructure Rancho Cielo