AUSTIN (KXAN) -- One misstep by a contractor last September cracked a 48-inch water main in northwest Austin, launching a geyser 50 feet over treetops and draining more than 16 million gallons of treated water into a ravine.
It was enough to fill 24 Olympic swimming pools, but compared to how much water the city lost last year to leaky pipes, it was just a proverbial drop in the bucket.
In 2024, city-owned pipes seeped and spewed 9.3 billion gallons of treated water – a 31% increase over the previous year, according to annual audits submitted to the Texas Water Development Board.
For perspective, that’s 110 gallons of water lost per connection per day, and the city has a quarter million connections, according to the audit.
Looked at another way, 2024’s leaks could fill Lake Austin.
Water main break near Loop 360 and Spicewood Springs Road closes all lanes on Spicewood Springs Road Monday, Sept. 23 shortly before 10 a.m. (Photo courtesy: ATX Transportation and Public Works)The losses underscore the struggle utilities face in a state where experts consider water scarcity a looming existential threat, and lawmakers are pushing to dedicate billions of dollars to build new supplies and fund strategies to conserve existing water – like fixing leaky pipes.
Jennifer Walker, a Texas water expert, said Austin Water is likely not satisfied with increasing leak volume, considering how much money and effort the utility has dedicated to stemming those losses.
“Austin is not the only city that is struggling with this … Houston, San Antonio, other cities, you know, are investing in reducing water loss, but they're not seeing the results that they might expect,” said Walker, the senior director for the Texas Coast and Water Program at National Wildlife Federation and chair of the City of Austin’s Water Forward taskforce.
Walker has been tapped into the city’s water leak mitigation efforts for years. When Austin saw leak volumes increasing despite extensive investment, it retained consulting firm Black & Veatch to provide a system-wide analysis and recommendations, she said.
The consultant’s report was completed in October 2024, at a cost of $200,000, according to city records. With the report in hand, the city opted to implement essentially every significant recommendation – a signal to Walker that Austin is taking water loss seriously.
“Austin is growing. They absolutely do not want to be losing [water] through infrastructure, because us going out and getting our next water supply is going to be hugely expensive,” she said.
System overview
Austin has three water intakes – two in Lake Austin and a newer one in Lake Travis. The utility serves more than 1.1 million customers, has over a quarter million service connections and 4,000 miles of water mains, according to the consultant report and water audit.
The 9.3 billion gallons of water lost represents 16% of the 56.3 billion gallons the system produced last year, according to the TWDB audit. The city's "infrastructure leakage index" or ILI also exceeded 5, the targeted upper limit for a large utility, for the first time last year.
Austin Water is “constantly striving to reduce water loss” and has a “rigorous” and multifaceted program to curtail leaks, the utility told KXAN by email.
Austin pipes leaked enough drinking water in 2022 to fill Lady Bird Lake nearly 3 timesThe water loss program focuses on fast responses to reported leaks, with crews getting to 90% of them within 3 hours. The city also inspects between 700 and 1,200 miles of pipes annually. As a result, water main failure rates have decreased each year and are better than industry standards, the city said.
Austin Water’s 100-year water resource plan, called “Water Forward,” estimates loss mitigation will save 7,500 acre-feet of water per year by 2040 – about the amount in Lake Marble Falls.
Austin’s 9.3 billion gallons of water loss last year is categorized as “real water loss,” which means those are actual physical gallons leaking from the system. The audit also tracks “apparent losses.” Those are accounting losses caused by issues like inaccurate meters and data errors.
“Apparent losses have several undesirable effects on utility operations,” according to the Black & Veatch report. “They distort customer consumption data and cost water utilities revenue when accounts are underbilled.”
Austin’s apparent losses dropped 33% last year – from 1.5 billion down to 1 billion gallons – driven in large part by the city’s smart meter replacement program, according to the utility.
Separately, Austin Water is replacing polybutylene service lines – the smaller diameter lines that link water mains to properties. Polybutylene lines are known for high failure rates, according to Austin Water. Polybutylene was installed in cities and millions of homes from the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, until its shortcomings were publicized.
“Austin Water has committed $18 million in our proposed FY26-30 Capital Improvement Program budget to accelerate the replacement of those lines,” and the utility could use low-interest loans through TWDB for that effort.
Austin is also piloting “Digital Metering Areas” as part of the city’s smart meter program. The DMAs began operation this January and help with early leak detection, according to Austin Water.
Renewing Austin
For years, the city has invested in its “Renewing Austin” water main replacement program. From 2016 to 2024, the program spent over $369 million to replace more than 422,000 feet, or about 80 miles, of aging and rupture-prone mains.
That water main replacement program has become more costly in recent years, according to city data KXAN obtained.
In the four years before the pandemic, water main replacement cost an average of $537 per foot. That cost has increased since the pandemic and jumped up to more than $1,700 per foot last year, the highest in nine years of data KXAN obtained. The utility said rising interest rates and material costs contributed to cost increases, and they are using low-interest loans from TWDB to save on financing.
Cities across the state are spending similar amounts to replace aging water mains.
Donovan Burton, senior vice president of water resources and governmental relations at the San Antonio Water System, said his utility spends “well over $100 million a year” on replacing water mains, including some repairs.
“We hate that there's water leaking out of the pipes, and water main breaks,” Burton told KXAN.
Efforts across Texas
But comparing one city’s water loss to another is tricky, Burton said. Municipal water systems vary greatly from one to the next. Drought conditions, length of water mains, soil types and variations in water intakes all contribute to a system’s complexity and service needs.
San Antonio has 8,000 miles of water mains, the most in the state, and double the length of Austin’s, according to Burton and TWDB. San Antonio is also positioned on clay soil that dries and compacts during drought, causing mains to leak. Conditions like that aren’t present in every major city.
Burton said his utility is employing a full array of leak mitigation efforts, similar to other cities like Austin.
San Antonio has tripled the scope of its proactive leak detection program over the past two years and is using artificial intelligence tools to assess pipe conditions and develop a schedule to target high-risk areas.
Fort Worth is replacing its manual water meters with remote-read meters and revising its water loss management plan. The city is “prioritizing and accelerating the replacement of cast iron water lines” and “continuously refining our processes to improve accuracy,” said Fort Worth Water spokesperson Mary Gugliuzza.
Dallas has “made significant investments in leak detection, condition assessments and pipeline replacement to reduce water loss,” said spokesperson Nick Starling. “The leak detection program utilizes multiple types of technology to detect non-surfacing and hard-to-find leaks and covers the entire water system every 2.5 years.”
Soon, new funding could open up for utilities across the state for water loss mitigation.
Burton explained the new laws could have major implications for water in Texas.
State effort
Senate Bill 7 and House Joint Resolution 7 create rules and additional funding for the Texas Water Fund, Burton said.
The Texas Water Fund was established and funded with $5 billion in 2023. It is administered by TWDB supports regional water strategies, according to the House Research Organization.
If approved by voters in November, the Water Fund will get a $1 billion per year infusion. The money will go to “two buckets:” half for new water supplies and half to all the TWDB’s water programs, Burton said.
“We'll be watching and working with the Water Development Board in terms of the rules that will be developed and how we might be able to use that,” Burton said. “We are certainly looking at those funding streams as part of our water loss program.”
While the water money depends on voter approval, experts and lawmakers behind the funding effort have painted a dire picture of Texas’ future if the state doesn’t make significant investments.
Texas could face a water shortage of 6.9 million acre-feet per year in 2070 under record drought conditions, according to a Senate Bill 7 analysis.
A Texas 2036 report called “Assessing Texas’ Water Infrastructure Needs” estimates the potential for massive losses. Texas 2036 is a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy group.
“If Texas fails to develop the broad, diversified water supply portfolio needed for the next prolonged, severe drought similar to that of the 1950s, then as soon as 2030 the state will endure $160 billion in annual GDP losses, nearly 800,000 jobs lost, and an exodus of families seeking refuge – and water – elsewhere,” according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit policy group’s report.
Walker said Austinites and Texans need to know their utilities are doing everything they can to stop leaks and secure the water they already have in their systems.
“We can't ask the rate payers for the city of Austin, or for any city in Texas, to go out and support the next water supply, whether it be seawater desalination or brackish groundwater, or importing it from somewhere else, if we are losing massive amounts of water that we already have in our infrastructure. We just can't do it like that anymore in Texas,” she said.
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