See Sam in Austin
SAMCO’s Sam Godfrey will be in Austin next week attending the TCEQ Public Drinking Water Conference. Stop by the SAMCO booth to learn more about how SAMCO can save you water – and money – during the drought.
TCEQ Public Drinking Water Conference
DoubleTree Hotel, Austin
Austin, Texas
(PS: If you’re coming, bring rain)
It’s not over yet
As of July 30, more than 30% of Texas remains in Exceptional or Extreme Drought. Texas’ lake levels are dropping [Click here], down almost 10 percentage points since Aug. 1 of last year…
…and August is coming.
Public wants to follow the money… and the water
By Sam Godfrey
Water is liquid money.
Like money, there’s never seems to be enough water when you need it. Like money, when you’re in a losing water situation, you got to cut your losses.
Water systems are going to have leaks. The trick is to find and fix the little leaks before they become big leaks.
For a long time, if a utility pumped just 15 percent more than it sold, that was good enough. Utilities are going to look back some day and think of that time as the “good old days.”
The Legislature and the public aren’t going to accept that level of water loss much longer. In the regular session this spring, the Legislature passed three bills that tightened the requirements for water audits.
- House Bill 857 requires annual water audits for retail public utilities with more than 3,300 connections.
- House Bill 1461 requires reporting results of water audits to each customer annually, either through communication in the next water bill after the audit is filed or through the next Consumer Confidence Report after the audit is filed.
- House Bill 3605 ties Texas Water Development Board funding to water audits. TWDB has several financial programs to help utilities close their leaks. Check the TWDB website, www.twdb.texas.gov, or contact TWDB’s Darrell Nichols at 512-463-8491.
Just as there are more calls for “transparency” when it comes to money, there are more calls for “transparency” when it comes to water.
SAMCO is getting more calls from utilities across the region to help keep small leaks from becoming big leaks and big headaches for city officials and utility executives.
As with money, when it comes to saving water, there’s no time like the present.
Hope for rain but keep your system tight while you’re waiting.
Sam
Sam Godfrey is the owner of SAMCO Leak Detection & Water Assessment, which provides comprehensive leak detection services for water systems.
