Maintaining system infrastructure to deliver clean and safe drinking water to customers is often a significant challenge for the operators of public water systems (PWSs). Much of the estimated 880,000 miles of drinking water infrastructure in the United States has been in service for decades and can be a significant source of water loss. In addition to physical loss of water from the distribution system, water can be 'lost' through unauthorized consumption (theft), administrative errors, data handling errors, and metering inaccuracies or failure. Water is a commodity that is produced by a PWS; therefore, lost or unaccounted-for water can be equated to lost or unaccounted-for revenue. A water loss control program can help to locate and reduce these water losses and thus maintain or increase revenue. A PWS must balance use of its resources to address the financial and personnel demands of economic restrictions, water availability, population and climate changes, regulatory requirements, operational costs, and public and environmental stewardship. A water loss control program can help identify and reduce actual water losses along with apparent losses resulting from metering, billing or accounting errors. Water loss control programs can potentially defer, reduce, or eliminate the need for a facility to expend resources on costly repairs, upgrades, or expansions. A water loss control program will also protect public health through reduction in potential entry points of disease-causing pathogens.

Cover title. Publisher information came from cover--P. [2] of cover. Publication location information from EPA Office of Water contact us website. "EPA 816-R-10-019"--Page 2 of cover. "November 2010"--Page 2 of cover. Includes bibliographical references. Printout of .pdf file.

"Water loss control programs can potentially defer, reduce, or eliminate the need for a facility to expend resources on costly repairs, upgrades, or expansions. A water loss control program will also protect public health through reduction in potential entry points of disease-causing pathogens. A water loss control program is an iterative process that must be flexible and customizable to the specific needs of a PWS [public water system]. There are three major components of an effective water loss control program that must be repeated on a periodic basis to continually evaluate and improve the performance of a PWS. These three components are 1) the Water Audit, 2) Intervention, and 3) Evaluation."--Vii.