By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER

LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — Eleven and a half million gallons.

That’s how much water the Metro Utility Department treated or bought in October and never sold, according to figures in the board’s November meeting packet.

Put another way, about 4 of every 10 gallons that went into the system never made it to a paying customer.

It’s also getting worse. Losses had held around 9 million gallons a month before jumping by about 2 million in October, MUD Board member Glen Thomas said at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

The department’s own records show where only a sliver of it went.

THE NUMBERS

In October, MUD produced 24.73 million gallons at its treatment plant and bought another 3.53 million from the Tullahoma Utility Authority, a total of 28.26 million gallons. It sold 16.77 million.

That left 11.49 million gallons unaccounted for, a loss rate of 40.6%, the figure MUD reports to the state. Spread across the system’s roughly 2,800 connections, it works out to about 339 gallons lost every minute of the month.

The packet also included 10 handwritten leak reports from October, covering breaks from Preston Ridge Road to the Main Street ball park. Together, they account for roughly 200,000 gallons. That’s less than 2% of what went missing.

Even after crediting water used for flushing lines and by the fire department, MUD’s internal calculation, marked “not reported to the state,” still puts the loss at 39.7%.

MUD pays to treat or buy every one of those gallons, whether it reaches a customer or not.

The problem isn’t new, and it isn’t only on MUD’s radar. In a Sept. 28 letter following its routine sanitary survey of the system, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation put MUD’s water loss at about 39%.

“The sources of water loss within the system should continue to be investigated and addressed,” the letter states.

WHERE IS IT GOING?

At Tuesday night’s board meeting, Utility Manager Ronnie Cunningham pointed to the same place the department has been pointing for months: the county’s last galvanized water lines located in Chapman Acres and in town.

Meters along those old lines are showing leaks, Cunningham said, but the water isn’t coming to the surface where crews can find it.

“Every one of them over there is showing leaks on that old galvanized line, but there’s none of it coming top the ground,” Cunningham said.

Asked how many millions of gallons those lines might be losing, he said he couldn’t put a number on it.

“I know there’s a lot,” he said.

During the October Metro Council meeting, when Council member Regina Adcock asked how much of that the galvanized line replacement project would fix and whether the department had done an analysis. The answer given was “about ten percent.” {Click here for our coverage of that meeting.}

The department plans to replace the Chapman Acres and Highway 55 galvanized lines with up to $1 million in borrowed money. The plans are with the state, and MUD is still waiting on approval. Replacing the service lines is required under a federal lead rule. {For information about the federal guideline reolving around the replacement click here.}

One board member summed up the frustration plainly.

“It’s kicking our booty. I ain’t lying. It’s very disheartening,” Chair Greg Guinn said.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

In the meantime, the department is changing how it looks for lost water. Crews now read meters twice a month instead of once, so a leak can be caught before the end of a billing cycle. A leak detection program is now running at the water treatment plant, and crews use two portable leak detectors in the field.

Over the next two weeks, MUD will compare how much water flows out of a storage tank’s master meter against how much customers in that area are billed. The gap should show which part of the system is losing the most.

Board members also floated paying an outside company to walk the lines and locate leaks. No vote was taken.

The board is planning a work session at 4:45 p.m. before its December meeting to talk through long-term priorities for the water system. The session is open to the public, and no votes will be taken. •

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