Page 46 - Water Loss Control

28 Cha pte r T h ree

• Poorly structured meter reading or billing systems.
• Poor tracking of changes in real estate ownership or other changes in customer
account status.
• Lack of understanding of technical and managerial relationships in assessing,
reducing, and preventing apparent loss.
In the United States, “water accounting” is not
an established practice as is “financial” accounting,
which has substantial controls and accountability
Most errors in water account- built into its standardized process. The fact that con-
ing occur mainly due to a lack sistent standards for water accounting don’t exist
of structure and controls in the likely results in many water systems understating
accounting process. actual customer usage and failing to capture full
billing potential.

Unauthorized Consumption
The last of the three primary occurrences of apparent water loss is unauthorized con-
sumption. While human nature holds a high regard for the quantity-cost relationship,
it is also true of human nature that a certain small segment of a population will attempt
to illegally obtain service without making payment. Unauthorized consumption is
likely a more common phenomenon in systems where customer meters are in use and
water is billed per unit volume. Where flat rates are charged and consumption is not
routinely monitored, customers can draw greater quantities of water to lower their own
effective unit cost. These customers would need to evade inclusion in the billing process
altogether in order to obtain water service without paying.
Unauthorized consumption can occur in a number of manners. Much unauthorized
consumption occurs at the point of established end users. Some customers tamper with
meters or meter-reading equipment in order to lower meter readings. Fortunately, many
AMR systems have tamper detection features that help thwart such activity. Unscrupu-
lous users with large water meters have been known to open valves on unmetered
bypass piping, thereby routing their supply around the active water meter. Some users
or contractors may consciously or unwittingly connect branch plumbing pipes to cus-
tomer service lines upstream from the water meter, which also provides supply without
passing through the meter.
Urban systems in the northeast section of the United States have encountered a
frequent occurrence of customer restoration of terminated service connections. Closing
and locking curb-stop valves on the customer service line is a common means of termi-
nating service used by water utilities in the United States against delinquent customers.
Illegal restoration occurs when delinquent customers reactivate their own water service
after the water supplier due to nonpayment has stopped it. These situations evidence
the need for water suppliers to continue to monitor
terminated accounts, after they are shutoff, for
resumed, unauthorized consumption. The city of
Theft of water can be a com- Philadelphia provides such monitoring and has
mon occurrence in the United achieved success in reducing illegal restorations;
States and is not just a third lowering their discovery rate from 35% of all termi-
world problem. nated accounts to less than 20% since the installa-
tion of their AMR System in 1999. During its 2007