Water Efficiency Magazine_Leak Detection

September-October 2014
The Art of Leak Detection and the
Arithmetic of Audits
“An active leak detection program is one of the best ways to mitigate losses in
other areas of the water system.”
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Thursday, September 11, 2014
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By Carol Brzozowski
According to EPA, public systems face numerous challenges,
including aging infrastructure, increasing regulatory
requirements, water quantity and water concerns, and
inadequate resources. These challenges are amplified through
changes in population and climate.
It is estimated that the US will need to spend upwards of $200
billion on water systems in the next two decades for
transmission and distribution system upgrades. Of that amount,
$97 billion is estimated for water loss control. Average water
loss in systems is 16%, with up to 75% of that being
recoverable.
When Utility Services Associates, a company that provides
water leak detection, asset, and efficiency services began in the
mid-1980s, many utilities approached maintenance with an “out
of sight, out of mind” mentality, leading to delayed maintenance
and underinvestment, notes Rob Meston, company president.
“We are paying for it now with water lines leaking at alarming
rates and demand and droughts stripping and outpacing
supply,” he says.
American Leak Detection points out that leak detection helps
reduce non-revenue water (NRW), liability issues, repair costs,
and avoids system contamination.
While leak detection is only one component of a complete water
system asset management program, it is usually the most cost-
effective and quickest way to recover lost water and reduce
revenue losses, Meston points out.
“An active leak detection program also is one of the best ways
to mitigate losses in other areas of the water system, such as
lowering pumping and treating costs, reducing overtime hours
due to emergency call-outs for leak repairs, and lowering liability claims by locating and repairing leaks before they
become catastrophic events,” he adds.
Utility Services Associates uses multiple methods to collect and analyze water loss data for its clients. If a water audit
is required, Utility Services Associates uses the free Water Audit Software developed by the American Water Works
Association (AWWA) Water Loss Control Committee, which can be found at awwa.org. The company also
recommends this software for clients doing their own audits. Many utilities have already completed a basic (or top-
down) audit, Meston notes.
Methodology
Over the last 10 to 15 years, many types of equipment, technologies, and procedures have emerged, with some
being better than others, says Meston, adding that his company will choose the most appropriate approach from
what’s out on the marketplace to effectively and accurately locate and pinpoint all detectable leaks in any water
system.
“We also develop procedures specific to our clients’ individual system,” says Meston. “For example, the approach to
survey PVC is much different than the procedures and methods used to survey for leaks on metallic and asbestos-
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Page 1 of 8The Art of Leak Detection and the Arithmetic of Audits | Articles | Water Efficiency
9/18/2014http://www.waterefficiency.net/WE/articles/26936.aspx

PHOTO: MCCROMETER
Side view of a FPI Mag Flow Meter
cement systems. We will cater our equipment,
procedure, and methods to meet each client’s specific
needs in order to achieve the highest rate of return.”
On any given project, Utility Services Associates
technicians will have available almost any type of
equipment, including leak noise surveyors, leak noise
correlators, acoustic ground microphones, pipe and
cable locators, metal detectors, and fully equipped
mobile leak detection units.
With no two systems being alike, a main leak in one
water system on 8-inch cast iron may be completely
different than an 8-inch main leak in another water
system, he adds. “If we can’t find a leak with a
correlator, we may use an acoustic ground
microphone or a probe rod and leak noise amplifier,”
says Meston, adding some leak detection equipment
manufacturers have requested his company field-test
their equipment.
Even with all of the technology, the most important
factor in leak detection is the person conducting the
study, Meston says. “Leak detection is an art which
requires many hours of training and a great deal of
hands-on experience,” he says. “The best technology
is no good if it’s put into the hands of someone without
the training and expertise to use it or to recognize that
it’s not the correct application for a given situation.”
One must “know how to truly assist the client—as
opposed to finding the easy leaks—collect the
payment, and leave.”
Mitigating leaks through audits and detection helps
water utilities reduce system leakage to an “economic
minimum,” and provides them with the tools to
continue to keep losses at manageable levels and
prioritize for line replacement based on historic leak
results as well as other efficiency measures, says
Meston.
“This is done either entirely by us, entirely by the utility,
or sometimes in combination,” he says. Regardless,
it’s a three-step process:
The water audit, a critical and often most important first step for any utility, says Meston. There are two audit formats:
“top down,” touched on already, which is compiled using available data and records, even if the accuracy has not
been validated, or “bottom up,” a more thorough investigation into loss components to describe the nature of the
occurrence of loss and accurately quantify the loss volume and cost impact.
Intervention, which addresses the findings from the audit through implementation of controls to reduce or eliminate
water losses. A leak detection program is one of the quickest ways to recover lost water and lost revenue, Meston
says.
Evaluation, which uses performance indicators to verify the successes of the chosen intervention actions.
Meston says many utilities are aware that leaks are a significant part of their system losses and will first get their
system, or a portion of it, surveyed for leaks so they can make immediate repairs and build a program from there.
With respect to audits, one of the first factors water utilities should consider is the NRW Management Strategy,
Meston says. “A daunting task facing nearly all water utilities is managing and reducing NRW,” he says. “NRW is the
difference between system input volume and billed authorized consumption. It is important that utilities implement a
NRW Management Strategy with set operational and target performance indicators for NRW.”
By completing a “top down” water balance audit, a utility will not only identify the major components of loss and
consumption, but costs are factored in which allow the utility to assess the financial impact of each component,
enabling the utility to create an effective NRW management strategy, Meston points out.
Scott Wicklund, Utility Services Associates’s director of new technologies and training, says IWA/AWWA best
practice methodologies are effective as they define water consumption and water loss in water systems.
“The IWA Water Balance Audit quickly identifies key performance indicators which allows utilities to assess their
water loss, benchmark themselves against other utilities, and set performance goals,” says Wicklund. “The concept is
that all water is quantified by measurement or estimate. This is a valuable starting point in any water loss
management program as it reveals information that aids in the overall NRW plan development.”
In addition to displaying the system input volume and authorized consumption, the water balance breaks down water
losses into apparent losses and real losses. “The water balance will assist the utility in determining several different
types of performance indicators,” says Wicklund. “Operational efficiency performance indicators, financial
performance indicators and Infrastructure Leakage Index [ILI] are all defined when the water balance is completed.
The water balance will assist the utility in prioritizing areas in need of attention.”
When adopting a “top-down” approach, a grading matrix has been developed over 15 years that enables the utility
personnel to base some of the data on estimates, says Wicklund. “The grading matrix reveals a weighted scale for
the components that is included in the calculation of the data validation score,” he says. “Identification of key
performance indicators ensures that the utility can develop its NRW Management Plan and reduce its loss in the most
efficient way.”
Example in Arkansas
The city of Hot Springs, AR, has strategically and aggressively implemented an effective NRW loss control plan, says
Wicklund. “Through diligent line replacement and active water leak detection projects, they have realized substantial

water loss reduction over the past four years,” he says. “The plan includes hiring Utility Services Associates every
other year to complete water leak detection surveys over strategically selected areas of the system.”
Phase I—conducted in 2010 and 2011—encompassed the entire district. Phase II consisted of city and consultant
personnel defining the areas where the greatest return on investment in terms of reduction of water loss would be,
based on numerous factors.
The system was experiencing an NRW real and apparent loss of 40%, or nearly 6.5 million gallons per day prior to
the initial leak detection survey, says Wicklund, adding that the annual cost of NRW loss was about $1.7 million. The
annual loss was about 2.3 billion gallons a year.
The city had recently installed an automatic meter reading (AMR) system.
During the first phase, some 852 miles of pipe were surveyed over a 148-day time period with 74 days spent
pinpointing. The pipe included ductile iron, cast iron, asbestos-cement, steel, and 50% PVC/heavy saturation of two-
inch galvanized steel. The system pressure was 80 to 120 PSI. There were 400 leaks pinpointed on the city’s side of
the meter, with 54 identified on the customer side.
During the leak detection project, some 26,289 appurtenances were sounded. Some 43% in real loss reductions were
realized, with many lines scheduled for replacement based on survey results; GPM was not estimated.
Hot Springs entered into an active replacement program in which several two-inch galvanized steel lines were
scheduled for replacement as part of project to assist in prioritizing replacements.
The annual financial benefit of reduced NRW, not including repair costs, totaled $762,601. The estimated payback
time for consulting costs was 3.3 months, the estimated payback time for the project, including 177 excavations, was
seven months. The estimated first year financial benefit after all repairs were made is $312,251.
The 100-day Phase II leak detection survey was completed in 2012/13, notes Wicklund. It resulted in the pinpointing
of an additional 167 water leaks that were either new, or had been masked by louder leaks during the initial survey.
“The results of Phase II continued to help identify and prioritize the water lines added to the replacement program,”
he adds.
Metering Flows in Systems
Greg Webster, sales manager for McCrometer’s municipal water and wastewater market, notes in the past several
years a “rapidly growing interest in capturing water losses and monitoring and improving efficiencies in water
distribution systems across the country.
“Water is a precious commodity,” he points out. “There are drought conditions that have existed in pockets for the last
several years that put stress on a system. Some of these distribution systems throughout our country are very, very
old, and it becomes a challenge to figure out what’s going on.” Some aging systems may not have had any other
upgrades other than additional pipe lengths added on to the system at some point through growth in infrastructure,
Webster adds.
He references one operation that wanted to use the FPI Insertion Mag to improve efficiencies and offer more visibility
with respect to their system. In the preliminary review, he spoke with the utility leaders regarding what type of pipe
may be in the system.
“One guy looked at another guy during the meeting and said, ‘I think there might be wood out there because of the
location.’ They weren’t kidding around. We were going to have to excavate around that pipe to find out if that’s what it
was. At the end of the day, all of the locations were indeed ductile iron. But it was old, dating back to the 1940s.”
It’s guesswork for municipalities to determine why there may be water losses in a system until they use tools to
pinpoint the nature of the problem. To that end, McCrometer offers the FPI Mag Flow Meter, an Insertion Mag Meter
that uses hot tap installation, enabling the meter to be inserted without cutting pipe, welding flanges, dewatering lines,
or interrupting service. The water flow sensor supports municipal water and wastewater applications.
The sensor body is manufactured from heavy-duty 316 stainless steel, is hermetically sealed, and protected by NSF-
certified 3M fusion-bonded epoxy coating. The FPI Mag is available with forward-flow only or bidirectional
measurement for line sizes ranging from 4 to 138 inches.
Water applications include distribution, effluent, UV dosing, filter balancing and backwash, and wells and booster
stations. Wastewater applications include effluent, recycle and reclaim and industrial facilities, such as power plants
including cogeneration, paper mills, chemical and petrochemical plants, metals and mining, and food and beverage.
Other applications include cooling water, fire water, feed water, raw water, and inlet to surge basin.
Webster says a magnetic flow meter is the most widely used flow-measuring device globally because of its accuracy
and reliability.
“They can be in service for a long period of time,” he points out. “There are no moving parts. They work on a principle
referred to as Faraday’s Law, which says when a conductor moves through a magnetic field, it induces a voltage.
Therefore, mag meters have taken over as the primary flow metering devices across many applications, particularly
in the water market.”
Some municipalities, when suspecting leaks in an aging infrastructure, have had an employee walk the pipeline to try
to detect where the main break is taking place, Webster says. At that point, a magnetic flow meter becomes
attractive, he adds.
A municipality can split an entire distribution system into different zones and install the flow meters to capture
accurate data across the entire distribution system, he says. Telemetry can be used to capture the information,
sending it to a central location. Such information can be utilized for reporting purposes. It can also offer an instant
view of where there may be a rapid increase in flow, enabling a quick response to improve operational efficiency.
Webster points out that many water operations don’t do much with respect to audits or leak detection because they
are unaware of what’s available or may choose a methodology that’s less accurate than other options. “In that sense,
they are throwing good money at a bad situation,” he says. Flow meters are one of the top tools at a utility’s disposal
required to operate a system, Webster says.
“I think it’s moving up the chain because people want to know more,” he adds. “There was a time when water flowed
and we really didn’t care too much about where it went. Everybody turns on their tap and expects water to flow. Some

PHOTO: MCCROMETER
McCrometer’s FPI Mag Flow Meter is an Insertion Mag Meter
that uses hot tap installation, enabling the meter to be
inserted without cutting pipe, welding flanges, dewatering
lines, or interrupting service.
people think it’s free or it should be free and don’t really understand there are costs involved in the municipal
distribution system and it has to be maintained.”
Leak Intelligence
Aclara’s STAR ZoneScan system combines leak-
detection technology from Gutermann International
and two-way fixed network AMI technology from
Aclara. ZoneScan, in concert with analytics, helps
utilities determine non-revenue water, meter
inaccuracy and leakage.
Aclara has created an MTU (the Aclara STAR Network
Water Meter Transmission Unit) that will communicate
with the sensor, which is attached to valves in the
distribution system via the integrated magnetic base,
and the deployed leak intelligence units monitor and
analyze noise characteristics and detect and identify a
leak’s location.
The MTU is set in place with a lid and “listens” to the
system between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. local time for
signatures that a leak in the water system will make,
says Steve Bruskiewicz, Aclara’s product manager for
water.
“It will listen to that sound, and after it does a two-hour
amplitude study, the system will correlate the distance
between the two nearest sensors that picked up that
leak and pinpoint the leak within three feet,” he says.
“After 10 a.m. on the following day, this data is reported to the utility through a dashboard, and they’ll be able to
monitor their system anywhere the ZoneScan unit is installed and keep an eye on it for leaks. This gives the utility an
opportunity to classify the leaks and repair the leaks on their own schedule.” The advantage of the system is that it
picks up the leaks when they are small, Bruskiewicz points out.
“We and the AWWA have found that about 80% of the water that leaks out of our distribution systems never rises to
the surface,” points out Bruskiewicz.
“These are all of the small leaks that end up following the water main and most of them end up getting into the
sanitary sewer system and creating problems for the treatment plant,” he adds. “The goal of this product is for us to
locate that 80% of the leakage, and give the utility the opportunity to schedule and repair the leaks in the most
efficient and economical way possible.”
The STAR ZoneScan system automates the collection, retrieval, and analysis of acoustic data, leveraging Aclara’s
STAR Network AMI system, including two-way communication between the utility head-end and endpoints, time-
synchronized initiation of sound recordings, and an interface to Gutermann’s Web-based data correlation software.
The system enables operators to select study parameters and analyze results at the utility office.
Utilities can compare total water consumption to water production to obtain a gross estimate of system water loss. In
response to ZoneScan units deployed in targeted areas of the pipeline, repair crews can be dispatched to identified
leak locations.
More utilities are moving to an AMI system, notes Bruskiewicz. “Where before they may have had a reading every
three months or once a month, now they’re getting readings every hour,” he says. “Through data analytics and the
STAR network, we have come up with methods to help the utility complete their AWWA water audit with the data
they’re already receiving today.
“With the STAR system, you can get your billed metered consumption, billed unmetered consumption and your
unbilled unmetered water, which are all of the authorized consumption values. It can populate all of those buckets
with the data.”
The system also can pick up on apparent and real water loss. “It can calculate where the water is going, such as
meter inaccuracy, and look at meter trending, indicating where water meters are starting to age,” says Bruskiewicz.
The system also can calculate that the proper meter is in the proper application, he adds. “You can have a two-inch
turbine meter and a two-inch compound meter. The two-inch turbine meter is a much less costly water meter than the
compound, but it’s good for reading high water usage, not low water uses,” says Bruskiewicz. “It’s not good at picking
up when you turn on a faucet or flush the toilet, whereas the compound meters are designed to pick up those low
flows, and through the data, the STAR system can indicate you’ve got the proper meter in the proper location.”
Bruskiewicz had operated utilities for more than 20 years, and as such, has worked on both sides of the fence and is
cognizant that there are financial issues to consider against the backdrop of an aging infrastructure. “Money is very
scarce for utilities, so they really need to quantify and qualify where they’re going to put their dollars,” he says.
“Utilities know their bad areas. Every utility has parts of their system that are in pretty good shape, parts that are
middle of the road and parts that are failing.”
While it’s optimal to install technology such as ZoneScan throughout an entire distribution system, when money is a
factor, utilities can take a “life and shift” deployment approach, Bruskiewicz says.
Aclara recommends the product be placed in the areas with the most known problems to locate the leaks and make
the repairs. “After you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve found all of your leaks and you’ve got all of your leaks
repaired that you’ve found, then you keep the product in place for another month to monitor,” says Bruskiewicz. “If
everything is good, then you can pick the product up and move it somewhere else. In that way, it gives utilities a way
to control their dollars. It’s not like they have to go all in for the system because most utilities can’t afford that.”
One cannot underestimate the importance of an audit as part of an overall approach toward fixing water distribution
problems, Bruskiewicz says. “It’s amazing when a utility looks at the result of a water audit,” he says. “I’ve seen audits
where there is 50% non-revenue water—that’s 50% of the water that we as a utility are putting out into the system
we’re not getting paid for. That happens more than you would think. Based on my experience, the average is
probably 20 to 35% non-revenue water.
“There’s a financial piece to it which would tell you the dollar value of what you’re losing on an annual basis,” says
Bruskiewicz. “Now you can calculate your return. I look at my water loss; I look at my water meters; I’ve done the

PHOTO: NEPTUNE
Neptune’s E-Coder R900i enables data logging with a rolling
96 days of hourly data from the meter to Neptune’s N_SIGHT
host software.
water audit. I’ve got a pretty good idea of where I’m losing water. If I aggressively attack this, I can save ‘X’ amount of
dollars annually. If I invest ‘X’ dollars this year, I am going to recoup those dollars in five to 10 years down the road.”
Detecting Patterns
“When we look at leakage for water utilities, typically we’re looking at leakage that’s on the residential side of the
meter or the distribution side of the meter,” notes John Parks, director for new business development for Neptune
Technology Group.
For detecting leaks on the residential side, Neptune offers solid-state encoder technology called E-Coder. The
technology divides a 24-hour period into 96 15-minute intervals, detecting flow in those 15-minute periods, Parks
says.
“If there’s flow in all 96 15-minute intervals, it’s a very accurate indication that there’s a continuous leak on the
residential side of the meter,” he says. “The E-Coder provides a leak flag. It can determine if there’s a continuous or
intermittent leak in the house. An intermittent leak can be classified as a faulty flapper valve in the toilet or a sink that
doesn’t tighten up enough and continues to leak.”
E-Coder identifies the leak types and reports them through the protocol back to the host software each time a meter
is read, enabling a utility to determine the next step based on the information provided.
Some utilities bring the leak data into their Customer Information System (CIS) software, using it to report the leak
states back to the customers, Parks says, adding that this is critical in states facing water supply shortages and
needing to conserve water.
In addition to its basic E-Coder that can be connected to a stand-alone radio, Neptune also offers the E-Coder)R900i,
which has an integrated R900 radio frequency meter interface unit (MIU) and provides 96 days of hourly data logging.
To identify leaks in distribution mains, Neptune has partnered with two acoustic leak sensor companies—Fluid
Conservation Systems’ Permalog and Vivax-Metrotech’s Leak Spy—that work with its AMR/AMI (Advanced Metering
Infrastructure) systems.
PHOTO: NEPTUNE
Data logging
“These devices listen for the sounds of leaks on distribution lines. Depending on the size of leak and the amount of
water escaping the pipe, there’s a certain high-pitched tone that occurs. Based on the sound that they’re hearing,
they can determine approximately where the leak is and how big it is,” points out Parks. “We work with (the acoustic
leak companies) to output protocol that our radios can read and interpret.
“This information comes back into our host software where it can be reviewed to help utilities identify where they have
leakage problems on the distribution mains and where they need to go in and pinpoint them more accurately.”
Identifying leaks across the system—and their severity level—supports the auditing process, says Parks.
“Our R450 Fixed Network AMI system is designed to read every residential meter, every commercial meter, and
every distribution meter at exactly the same time, at midnight every night,” he says.
That allows utilities to take a snapshot in time so they
can measure the amount of water that they pumped
through their distribution meters to the amount of water
that was used through their commercial and residential
meters. “By doing this, they can determine where
along their distribution lines they have leakage
problems,” says Parks.
At a micro-level—district metering—the utility can look
at a district meter that feeds two or three subdivisions
of residential homes and look at the amount of water
that flows through the distribution meter versus the
amount of water that was used through all of the
residential meters.
“When they subtract the amount of water used through
those residential meters from the distribution meter, if
it’s right in the same line and the same amount, they’re
OK,” says Parks. “If they’re missing a lot of water,
there’s most likely either a leak somewhere between
their distribution meter and all of those residential
meters or their residential meters are not operating at

new meter accuracy. Our AMI system helps them audit the districts within their system where they may potentially
have leakage problems.”
Whether to invest now when money can still be tight for utilities against the potential for encountering more expensive
problems down the road is the “age-old” problem, Parks points out.
“The water meters at the end of the day are the utility’s cash register,” he says. “If a utility’s water meters are not
accurate, then two things are happening: they are losing revenue and could be losing water to leakage.” With so
many areas facing water supply shortages and drought challenges, accurate metering is a significant factor in
managing their water resource, Parks adds.
“Investment in accurate meters/new meters and investment in AMR/AMI technology can allow utilities to effectively
monitor not only their meters but their infrastructure to identify where leaks are occurring, which is critical,” he says. “If
customers are told they have a leak at their residence that they need to fix, and if leaks on distribution lines can be
caught early, they can be repaired and addressed” before they get out of hand.
Around-the-Clock Listening
Itron’s approach to leak detection ties acoustic leak detection with its AMR/AMI system. The company has a leak
sensor module on its ChoiceConnect 100-W system.
“We deploy that throughout the entire system so we’re constantly monitoring 24/7, listening for leaks,” says Mark
Patience, the senior product manager for water communication modules and non-revenue water solutions for Itron.
“We also have other more complex correlating and listening devices that we use later on down the road once one of
our sensor alarms pinpoints where a leak is in the system,” he adds. “We do a little bit of both, but our main approach
is to deploy affordable leak sensors with our AMR/AMI system throughout the entire distribution system to monitor
around the clock.”
Utilities can typically find water loss through audits as a result of water theft or utilities not metering public buildings or
parks, Patience says.
“What we’re really trying to focus on with the acoustic leak sensor is the real loss, the actual leaks within the system,”
he adds. “If they do an AWWA water audit, they’ll be able to tell how much of their water loss is apparent loss, which
is your meter inaccuracies and so forth, and then how much is real loss—the actual physical water leaving the
distribution system before it gets to the customer.”
The primary benefit of acoustic leak detection is its low cost compared to other technologies, Patience says. “This
constantly monitors the system around the clock—you’re not surveying a section of pipe one day and moving into the
next section, and then it might take you several years to get back to the section you just surveyed,” he says. “Who’s
to say that a leak doesn’t occur the day after you leave—it could be six or seven years before you ever find it.”
Additionally, ongoing acoustic leak detection means locating leaks before they become major catastrophic issues,
Patience says.
“It’s a lot cheaper to repair a five-gallon-per-minute leak in a small area than it is to repair that leak once it becomes a
main break and you get to dig up hundreds of yards worth of road or you might have property damage or chemicals in
the water,” he says. “Main breaks are a lot more expensive than repairing smaller leaks. If you’re proactive and you
find the leaks before they become huge problems, it saves a lot of money just in repairs.”
The seriousness of water leaks depends on where in the US one resides, Patience says. With the exception of arid
areas, such as the Southwest, “we have a lot of water here, so it’s not that anybody here is doing without water in the
US,” he says. “It’s more the costs of energy to pump the water. If you’re pumping water that’s not being used, you
have additional energy costs. You may have to expand treatment facilities. So the cost is getting higher.”
Patience points out that in other countries, there are places in which water users have access to water only a few
hours out of the day. “We don’t have anything unusual like that here,” he says. “It’s more of a dollar issue: energy
costs, repair costs, infrastructure costs.”
Sustainability
While the nation’s water utilities work to mitigate the problems of an aging infrastructure, the industry is also working
to get ahead of the curve for future needs. Case in point: Envision for Sustainable Water Infrastructure, the product of
a joint collaboration between the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate
School of Design and the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
A workshop introducing Envision occurred at the June annual conference of the AWWA in Boston.
Envision sustainable infrastructure rating systems encompass a new system of tools for promoting the water industry
shift toward more sustainable development that includes criteria, a rating process, and the advantages and
challenges in using the tool on water utility projects.
As such, Envision assists those using it as a tool to ascertain whether a specific project will help meet sustainability
goals. “It’s also a powerful planning and design tool,” points out Bill Bertera, president and CEO of the Institute for
Sustainable Infrastructure. “It is best used when introduced at the earliest stages of that project’s inception. It’s not
prescriptive. It is based on established best practices.”
Envision serves as a checklist for engineers and others as they put together projects to assure that they don’t miss
anything in the context of sustainability in that project, says Bertera. It’s a tool specific to issues of sustainability and
doesn’t take the place of other tools, he adds.
“It is very flexible in that it takes into account the triple bottom line, which includes not just issues of engineering and
decision-making, but also environmental protection, community values, priorities and the like,” he says.
After an audit, a water utility can move on to the next step of leak detection to help set priorities. Perhaps a section of
the pipe needs mitigation or replacement, or maybe growing development needs require new infrastructure.
“That’s exactly the point where you would want to introduce this,” says Bertera. “You want to introduce it not just to
make your project better engineered, but to make sure that the project you are pursuing meets all of the criteria of
sustainability as well.” Sustainability doesn’t solely mean making something last longer, he says.
“We’re talking about the way we think about the future and the way we think about options not only for present needs,
but for future needs as well,” adds Bertera. “The Envision tool helps designers, planners, and others think about that

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as they’re putting together their projects. We like to say this isn’t just about doing the project right, but doing the right
project in the first place.”
Proactive Customers
While utilities conduct water audits on a large scale, when customers audit their own indoor and outdoor water use,
greater water efficiencies are derived. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, such audits are
sometimes conducted at no cost by a utility or through performance contractors, who will finance water efficiency
improvements in exchange for a share of the cost savings.
Case in point: The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had upgraded restroom facilities at LaGuardia Airport
to increase the efficiency of toilets, faucets, and showers. The port installed a leak detection system, ultra low-flow
toilets, high-efficiency aerators for faucets, and flow restrictors on showerheads, which yielded annual water savings
of almost $160,000 after an initial $90,000 capital outlay.
Author’s Bio: Frequent contributor Carol Brzozowski specializes in topics related to resource management and
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Topics:
• Infrastructure • Leaks and Audits • Resource-Management
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