El Paso loses millions of gallons of water each year due to faulty, aging pipes, experts say
As repair work continues on a broken water main near UTEP, backing up an already congested Mesa Street, ABC-7 looked into how much water El Paso loses when breaks like that happen.
Thousands of gallons of water were lost when they gushed onto Mesa Street, but according to a review of the state’s water losses, this isn’t the only place in Texas where aging infrastructure is springing leaks.
“In providing the public data we want to bring forth to the public this important information,” said Hubert Colas, president of FluksAqua, a group of water operators looking at the problem of water losses. “The public is the one that’s paying for this water and they should be aware of what their money is giving them.”
According to FluksAqua, more than 1.5 billion gallons of water are lost each year in El Paso — that’s enough to fill more than 2,300 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The cost? More than $4.3 million dollars or $20 per customer in water losses every year.
El Paso Water told ABC-7 their numbers for water losses are about half of those reported by FluksAqua, costing about $10 dollars a year per customer.
“Generally, we average about a main break every other day,” said Alan Shubert, vice president of operations for El Paso Water. “The real problem is really a nationwide infrastructure problem.”
Shubert said the age of the pipes at Ingersoll Way and Alabama Street, where a water main broke this past week and has broken eight times since 1984, is 62 years old. He said El Paso has some pipes as old as 90 or 100 years.
“We get more water line per year than we replace,” Shubert said. “That’s why we wind up not catching up on it, because the system continues to grow and it becomes an issue of rates.”
Shubert said El Paso Water devotes nearly $5 million a year to replacing old pipes. The company has also been using electronic leak detection sensors for the past dozen years.
“Buried infrastructure is out of sight out of mind until something goes wrong, Shubert said.
By comparison, according to FluksAqua, water losses in cities like Houston and Dallas are costing customers nearly $50 a year.
Shubert said the average age of pipes in El Paso is 44 years old, and even with all the main breaks, he believes El Paso Water’s water losses are among the lowest in the state.
