NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — An evaluation by the New Orleans Office of Inspector General has found that the Sewerage and Water Board’s yearly water loss is “consistently above” the highest range of the industry average of 45.5 %.
According to the OIG report, the SWBNO had a 10-year average of 73% non-revenue water loss between 2008 and 2017, and similar rates of water loss in 2021 and 2022, with a 75% loss in 2021 and a 64% loss in 2022.
Findings from the OIG report blamed the loss on infrastructure weaknesses, and metering and billing errors.
Additionally, the OIG found that many basic elements of water loss control, recommended by the American Water Works Association and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, were not adopted while other practices were being followed.
According to the OIG report, the “most glaring omission in the SWBNO’s practices was the lack of annual water audits, upon which operational planning and evaluation are based. Significantly, the SWBNO lacked the capacity to collect the necessary data to conduct water audits.”
Further findings revealed that the SWBNO took on other new projects with expectations to enhance their ability to manage the city’s water resources. The projects included an Advance Metering Infrastructure System or smart meter program, a Water Quality master Plan and an Enterprise Asset Management Work Order System Plan.
OIG officials said the SWBNO did not have a “formal framework” for water loss control to evaluate the proposed programs.
The report added that SWBNO officials planned to implement the smart meter program in 2022 but it was not expected to be fully launched until 2025.
The other two programs were still under development at the conclusion of the OIG review.
Finally, OIG officials said they found that SWBNO officials were not consistently reporting water loss to the New Orleans City Council, which hampered the utility’s ability to meet legal responsibilities.
As a result of the review, the OIG recommends that the SWBNO should firmly place its water loss control programs within the best practices framework and to enhance its data collection efforts to ensure officials can provide data compliant with reporting requirements.
To read the full report, visit the Office of Inspector General website.
In response, SWBNO officials released this statement:
SWBNO agrees that water loss control is an important course of action, and we are well on our way to implementing the processes, tools, and procedures that will make annual audits a standard practice within the organization. Additionally, our smart metering program will allow us to monitor water use in real-time and give us the tools needed to isolate problem areas so we can more proactively address system breaks in the future.
Notably, the $10.6 million in water lost due to leaks during the last cycle amounts to a replacement cost of a little over two miles of water mains out of our 1,700 total miles of water mains. SWBNO’s current revenue level does not allow for the replacement of water mains at the level needed to address all leaks within the system.
Information about our non-revenue water, as well as other aspects of our challenges and improvements can be found in our quarterly reports to the City Council. Click here to read the most recent report.
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