Austin said a report on water utility leaks would be final months ago. It’s still not public.

Austin has a leaky pipe problem.

The city’s water utility estimates it loses about 21 gallons of water per resident per day from leaks and breaks in the system. Last year that added up to over 7 billion gallons of treated water lost – more than enough to fill Lady Bird Lake three times over.

To help stanch the flow, Austin Water hired consultants Black & Veatch to look at how the city combats water loss and to offer new solutions. The $200,000 contract was approved by City Council in March 2023.

“We contracted with them to do a review of all that we were doing from auditing, to meters, to different (water) reading activities,” Austin Water Conservation Manager Kevin Kluge said at a meeting of the city’s Integrated Water Resource Planning Community Task Force last April.

At the time, Kluge said he regretted that the report would not be finished until June, which was too late to be included in updated conservation and drought management plans slated to go to City Council in May.

The conservation plan lays out year-round goals and policies for reducing water consumption and waste. The drought contingency plan includes emergency rules that go into effect in times of drought.

The water task force – an advisory board including experts in water conservation, engineering and law – was being asked to support the water plans before City Council voted on them.

“I think that report (Black and Veatch’s) will have a lot of information about what we could be doing and what we should prioritize,” Kluge said, “but we just don’t have that right now.”

In May, City Council approved the new water management policies without the support of the task force but with assurances from Austin Water that the utility would update conservation goals before the year’s end.

Advisers in the dark

June came and went with no word on the water loss report. By September, members of the task force were told the final report may not be released until October or later.

That timeline could again deny task force members the opportunity to review the water loss analysis before Oct. 8, when they might be again asked to endorse updated conservation proposals.

“Will (the consultants’ report) be available before we give our stamp of approval and send it to Council?” task force member Madelline Mathis asked in a recent meeting. “Because I feel like that’s important data when analyzing all this thing.”

Austin Water Director Shay Ralls Roalson said she didn’t think it would be “totally buttoned up and ready for public distribution” before Oct. 8, but that the utility would see about getting the task force a preview beforehand.

Climate change makes fixing leaks crucial

As the population grows and climate change brings more severe droughts, utilities across Texas are focusing on reducing water loss from leaks.

In Austin, stopping leaks is an essential part of achieving the city’s water-saving goals. Under the last iteration of Austin’s long-term water plan, Austin Water hoped to meet 44 percent of its conservation targets by reducing utility-side water loss.

Under the newest proposal, plugging leaks could be necessary to meet 39 percent to 50 percent of conservation goals, depending on drought conditions.

But, despite those targets, Austin appears to be losing ever more water through leaky pipes.

According to audits that Austin files annually with the Texas Water Development Board, the city lost about 6.5 billion gallons of water from leaks in 2021. That number increased to 6.9 billion in 2022. The most recent audit, which has not yet been reviewed by Texas Water Development Board staff, shows water loss rising again to over 7 billion gallons lost in 2023.

Sarah Faust, a member of the water task force, said Austin’s track record makes getting the Black & Veatch report finalized all the more important.

“Continued water loss may be a major reason (earlier Austin conservation) goals were not met, but we don’t have that information yet,” Faust wrote to KUT in response to a request for comment. “I believe the Task Force should be fully briefed on the results of the water loss report, plans to address water loss over the next five years, and the report made available before any action is taken on the revised water conservation plan.”

From ‘final report’ to ‘draft’

It’s unclear what’s holding up the release of Black & Veatch’s water loss report.

When asked if the consultant had been late in delivering the “final” report in June as promised, Austin Water spokesman Jose Emperador said Black & Veatch had been timely in providing “report drafts.”

“The teams have been collaborating to evaluate the findings and next steps,” he wrote.

In a follow-up email, KUT asked why the utility had – in public documents and presentations – said it expected a “final report” in June, but was now referring to reports it received as “drafts.”

Emperador did not directly answer that question, but said the “process has taken longer than anticipated but is necessary to make sure the final product is complete and accurate.”

The utility says the final Black and Veatch report, along with a plan to implement recommendations will be made public sometime in October.

That would give time for city advisory boards, other than the water task force, to review them before a City Council vote.

So far, it seems like whatever was revealed in the Black & Veatch report has not changed Austin Water’s estimation of how much water it may be able to conserve through fixing pipes.

Conservation goals for utility-side water loss in the most recent water plans are the same as they were in the plans proposed earlier this year.

KUT has filed a public information request to receive a copy of the consultant’s report as it was delivered around the June deadline.

This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.

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