16851_Authority_Aug_2023

36 The Authority | AUGUST 2023 Continued from page 19. tile iron pipe that is 20 years old, 22 miles of 3- or 4-inch cast iron pipe and some 6-inch asbestos cement pipe that is over 70 years old. In addition to using the ASTERRA satel- lite survey KTMA used a third party BOTG leak detection crew to pinpoint leaks, upgraded their acoustic lis- tening equipment and were trained on best practices for traditional leak detection methodologies. One satellite survey was performed and a total of 16 POIs were identified and delivered to KTMA via a GIS map on a web-based platform provided by ASTERRA. Rural water systems do not need to have their own GIS system to view the POIs. Over the course of 3.5 days field leak BOTG crews inspected the pipelines within the POI zone and found 5 leaks; 2 on main pipes, 2 on service lines and 1 on the customer side of the meter. Figure 2 shows the POIs and the pinpointed leaks. The four leaks on the utility side of the meter can be considered non-revenue water (NRW) leaks. It is estimated that fixing these leaks saved 125,000 gal- lons per day (gpd) and over $33,000 per year in production costs. The volume of real water loss re- duction was based on the baseline production of 900,000 gpd prior to the leak detection intervention, of which 75,000 gpd was being delivered to a lettuce grower for emergency temporary irrigation. This ended in early August 2022. The four NRW leaks were repaired by the end of August. All leaks were non-surfacing leaks with average flowrates of ap- prox. 20-25 gallons per minute. Water delivery was reduced to 700,000 gpd, yielding the 125,000 gpd real water loss savings. The estimate of the value proposi- tion to KTMA comes by calculating the reduction in energy and chemical costs based on the reduction in water treatment and delivery. The system pump run time in the beginning of Au- gust was 18.5 hours after deliveries to the lettuce grower had ended. By the end of August, the pump run time had been reduced to 15.5 hours. This is a 16% reductionw. Based on an average electricity cost of $4500 per month a savings of $730 per month was real- ized. The average chemical cost per Figure 2