At its Nov. 13 meeting, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board of Directors discussed efforts to reduce water loss with Operations Manager Andrew Connor.
Connor opened by providing an update on the district’s work with Asterra, a company that uses satellite data to detect water leaks.
He explained that the district and Asterra staff investigated 104 out of 121 points of interest identified in the satellite images from the company.
Connor stated that the points that were not investigated were mostly located in downtown Pagosa Springs and were not investigated due to the road construction occurring downtown and the team running out of time.
He added that he would like to investigate these sites in 2026.
He explained that 18 leaks were found on the customer side of meters and that those customers were contacted about them.
Of the 52 total leaks detected from these sites, 35 were not causing water to appear on the ground surface, Connor stated.
He added that it was “very beneficial for the district” to be able to locate these leaks.
The project located 13 water main leaks, Connor indicated, and 10 of these had been fixed at the time of the meeting, with the remaining three scheduled for repair.
He indicated that, except for one, all the leaks found by Asterra were “very small” and the total water loss found was below 50 gallons per minute (gpm), meaning that the district’s overall water loss did not significantly drop due to the repairs.
However, he noted that the project found 20 service line leaks, primarily from blown-out water meter bottoms likely caused by freezing and thawing cycles in the winter.
Connor explained that these leaks would be difficult to detect with conventional methods.
He added that the project also detected that some of the meters tested were not properly recording small uses of water, causing the district to lose revenue on water use for activities like pouring a drink of water or flushing a toilet due to the water use not being properly recorded.
PAWSD District Engineer/Manager Justin Ramsey noted that the meters had small issues outside of these lower flow levels, as well.
Connor stated that he would continue to pull and test more older meters to help determine if the issue with meters failing to register is widespread.
He added that he is working with three meter manufacturers to look at potential new meters.
PAWSD board member Glenn Walsh asked if the meters were registering wrongly in a consistent way, adding that, if this is true, the issue could be corrected with adjustments to billing instead of replacing meters.
Connor stated that this issue is difficult since a home with a single occupant might use lower volumes of water and its meter might miss more water use at low flows than another home with more occupants who would use water at higher volumes.
Thus, Connor suggested that it would be better to replace meters if a large-scale issue is detected.
He commented that new meters have warranties between 10 and 20 years.
Walsh commented that the district needs to balance fairness to each customer with a general statistical approach that would save money.
Connor stated that he would want to gather more data on the issue to present to the board before making a decision.
PAWSD board member Alex Boehmer asked what the overall reduction in water loss is with this project.
Connor stated that the loss found was below 50 gpm and the project did not identify large leaks, although he added that this “didn’t really surprise me” since larger leaks would damage roads or ditches.
He commented that he believes the district has thousands of small leaks that accumulate to create significant water loss.
Connor stated that the entire project cost $84,000 and resulted in “a couple percent” reduction in water loss.
“That’s the best bang for our buck that we’ve gotten so far that I’m aware of,” Boehmer said.
Connor commented that this is the only time in his career at PAWSD that, when the district brought in an outside contractor to detect leaks, a leak was found in every hole that was dug to detect leaks.
He stated that he would not want to repeat the satellite analysis next year, but would want to focus on resolving the meter issues and potentially bringing a team to analyze leaks detected by the satellite data in the downtown area.
Connor commented that locating leaks is particularly important downtown since the area has a large amount of asphalt and concrete that is costly to disturb.
He stated that having this team in Pagosa Springs for 10 days would cost about $40,000.
Ramsey commented that the district has likely located most large leaks and that replacing meters to reduce water loss through under-reporting meters, although it would be expensive, might be cheaper than getting a comparable decrease in water loss by fixing small leaks.
PAWSD board chairman Gene Tautges noted that newer meters do not contain moving parts like PAWSD’s current meters, which might make leaks more difficult to detect since they cannot be heard.
Connor commented that there are “pros and cons” to the newer styles of meters, indicating that they are more accurate but require a full replacement if they break and make hearing leaks more difficult, although there are still ways to hear them.
He also expressed agreement with Ramsey that the cost of replacing meters could be less in some cases thanfixing certain leaking pipes.
“Hunting for water on an asphalt road is extremely expensive,” Connor said.
Ramsey added that he would not advocate for not fixing these leaks, but that ensuring the amount of water being used is read correctly could be valuable as well.
josh@pagosasun.com
>