Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
is lost before it reaches the tap, a loss totaling tens of billions of gallons
a year.
7
New York City loses 15 percent of its water to leaks in its 6,000
miles of water mains, and ruptures occur fi ve hundred or six hundred
times a year. Buffalo loses 40 percent to leaks and Boston 36 percent.
Pittsburgh loses 12 million gallons of water each year, 15 percent of its
water production, because of breaks in water mains. St. Louis's water
system predates the Civil War. In 2007, Suburban Sanitary Commission
crews in the nation's capital repaired 2,129 breaks and leaks; 2008 was
better, in that only 1,700 pipes broke. Because of damage from Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, the water pipes in New Orleans leak 50 million gallons
each day, 18 billion gallons per year.
8
According to the American Water
Works Association, a “huge wave” of water mains laid fi fty to one
hundred or more years ago is approaching the end of useful life, and
“we can expect to see signifi cant increases in break rates and repair costs
over the coming decades.”
9
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has projected that unless
cities invest more to repair and replace their water and sewer systems,
nearly half of the water system pipes in the United States will be in
poor, very poor, or “life-elapsed” status by 2020. Currently about
4,400 miles of cast-iron pipe are replaced each year, and an estimated
13,200 miles of new pipe are installed—2 percent of this part of our
infrastructure.
10
Many cities can recite horrifying stories resulting from inadequate or
broken water or sewage pipes. In Prince George County, Maryland, on
January 18, 2009, a 42-inch pipe installed in 1965 broke and sent a river
almost 75 feet wide fl owing from the yards of some homes into the base-
ments of others.
11
In Pittsburgh in 2000, a 5-foot portion broke off from
a 20-inch diameter water main, spilling 20 million gallons and disrupting
service for many hours to 8,000 homes and several hospitals.
12
In West
New York, New Jersey, in 2007, a seventy or eighty-year-old 2-foot-wide
pipe ruptured, stopping water service for 200,000 people and sending
water rushing down the street like rapids in a raging river. It took two
and a half days to restore service.
13
In December 2008, a forty-four-year-
old water main fi ve and a half feet in diameter broke shortly before 8:00
A.M. in a hilly area of Bethesda, Maryland, sending 150,000 gallons of
water a minute rushing down a highway, much to the distress of cars in
its path. In the same year, public outcry had forced cancellation of a
proposed monthly fee of twenty dollars to speed up replacement of the
area's pipes, which are currently being replaced at an inadequate rate of
27 miles per year.
