Each year, the city's Pittsburgh's
purification plant takes 15 billion
gallons of water from Lake Arlington,
treats it, stores it, and then pumps it
to water hungry customers all over the
city.
But before all of that water gets from
here to here, a whole
lot of it is getting lost.
The city estimates a five percent loss
per year through pinhead and pencil sized
leaks, and that costs about three
hundred seventy five thousand dollars on
an annual basis.
And that would be about two hundred fifty
million gallons over the course
of the year.
Add to that a potential for water sale
of 750000 a year in the city.
Thought it was high time to bring in
experts to find the leaks.
Conservation Technologies of
Massachusetts is one of a half dozen
firms that use electronic audio equipment
to detect them.
Over the next few months, one fourth or
two hundred fifty miles of the system
will be checked when water
leaks out of a man.
It's coming out from under pressure, and
some of the energy that it loses turns
into sound that this machine is
designed to pick up the
sound in a certain audio frequency.
Conservation technology should take about
three months to complete its leak
detection survey and report.
And with that survey in hand, the city's
water department should be in a position
to begin the actual field work almost
immediately.
Ron Trumbla, Channel 5 News.