Birmingham Water Works

40% of Water Lost to Leaks, New Birmingham Water Works Board Learns

Birmingham Water Works managers Barry Williams, Mac Underwood and Mark Parnell during Monday’s water board work session. (Photo by Olivia McMurrey)
Your support helps us grow and sustain a newsroom for the City Built to Change the South.
Donate today to help Birmingham stay informed.

Almost half the water that flows through the Birmingham Water Works system is not paid for, with 40% lost to leaks, newly appointed Water Works board members learned Monday evening during a work session in which BWW managers and consultants apprised them of operating practices, the state of assets and ongoing projects.

Patrick Flannelly, a senior vice president for Arcadis North America, an engineering consultant for BWW, told the board that, based on a five-year average, BWW does not bill for 48.5% of water that it pumps out of the system.

In response to a board member’s question about how that percentage compares to other water systems’ unbilled water, Flannelly said: “It’s not good. We’re fourth quartile.”

He said he believes the average percentage of “nonrevenue” water for utilities nationally is between 20% and 30%.

“The amount of water that’s leaking is probably close to 40%, so we’re probably double where we want to be,” he said. “We’ve just got to have a plan, a managed plan, to get there, to be able to afford it.”

In addition to water leaking from pipelines, some of which are more than 100 years old, unbilled water includes water the utility uses itself, water flowing through faulty meters and siphoned by unauthorized users, and water lost due to pipeline flushing that’s required to maintain water quality.

In 2020, the utility significantly accelerated its pipeline replacement project, focusing on aging unlined cast iron and galvanized pipes that make of 14.1% of the system but account for 67% of leaks, said Derrick Murphy, assistant general manager of engineering and maintenance for the Water Works. Instead of replacing 3 to 5 miles of those pipelines per year, for the past five years BWW has been replacing 15 to 17 miles per year.

But there are still approximately 584 miles to go, and at that rate, replacing all those lines will take about 40 years, Murphy said.

If the amount of unbilled water were cut by 20%, BWW would save $4.3 million annually, Flannelly said, and replacing pipelines costs $1.5 million per mile, so savings would not cover the costs.

“Five hundred miles of pipe is a $750 million investment,” he said. “It’s just massive, so we have to bite it off a piece at a time. The reality is, there’s no quick fix.”

Mac Underwood, general manager of BWW, said a task force is looking into nonrevenue water and ways to reduce it.

Board members also inquired about speeding the automated meter infrastructure project, which Water Works managers project will be complete in 3½ to 4½ years on the current schedule.

With capital improvement projects including pipeline replacement and the AMI system, Flannelly said BWW pays approximately 34% as it goes and uses grants, loans and bonds to fund the rest.

If the financed percentage increases, the utility’s bond rating would be hurt, which would increase borrowing interest rates because debt would increase, he said. The utility already has $1 billion in debt.

“But you’re also going to have to raise rates,” Flannelly said. “So there’s a delicate mix between rate balance, between bond rating, between total debt at the utility and the ability to get some of this done.”

Board member Phillip Wiedmeyer asked if an analysis had been done to show how much savings or reductions in customer issues could be achieved with a faster AMI schedule. Underwood said the Water Works’ financial adviser and rate consultants would be at the next meeting to tell the board about ways to pay for the capital-improvement program.

Multiple Water Works managers who spoke at the meeting pointed out that the system’s water quality consistently ranks high nationally, and Flannelly said there have been no Environmental Protection Agency quality violations in 44 years.

Board member Jarvis Patton asked about the Water Works’ stance on fluoridation, and Underwood said BWW would continue adding fluoride to the water unless it was disallowed. Florida and Utah have banned fluoride in public water.

The board’s next work session is May 29, and its next official board meeting is June 2.