The Austin Water utility is expected to present a new system to the city council early next year which could help mitigate a number of water leaks, which were in the billions of gallons in 2018.
Referencing a story originally aired by KXAN in which it was learned more than 6-billion-gallons of drinking water leaked from Austin pipes last year, council member Alison Alter said she wanted more understanding and explanation about the ongoing problem.
“About why we’re leaking the amount that we are and what we should take away from that in terms of the magnitude of the problem and the risks involved,” she said.
In response, Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros called it worthy of a standalone discussion for a later date. He did, however, discuss a system known as Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI, which would not only allow for the utlility to detect leaks in real-time, but also provide it with other metrics for further mitigation efforts.
“We see a big part of managing our water loss is improved measurement,” Meszaros said. “The water loss calculation relies on dozens of measurements, and small variations, particularly in metered water, can really affect how that measurement comes out.”
The Austin City Council will consider the AMI system at a meeting in early 2020.
