October 19, 2011
Plenty of people lose their car keys, but how do you lose 552 million gallons of drinking water? It’s a question Margaret Doss and her colleagues at Columbia County’s Water Utility are working diligently to answer—all in the name of conservation.
“Technically, it’s called ‘non-revenue water,’” said Doss, the department’s environmental compliance manager. “You look at what you make and what you bill for, and the difference is what nobody paid for.”
Columbia County is one of about 250 larger water producers that must perform detailed audits to comply with the Georgia Water Stewardship Act, a new law designed to reduce the need for more water by promoting more efficient use of what is available.
“We’re not required to do the audit until next year, but we did it this year as a proactive run,” said Doss, whose staff traced the 5.294 billion gallons of treated water pumped into the system during 2010. The amount for which revenue was received was just 4.742 billion gallons.
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