Where Has All The Water Gone?

Is somebody stealing Norfolk town water?

Town officials are perplexed enough about unaccounted-for water to wonder.

There’s no proof, but the evidence is disconcerting to selectmen.

The town currently has more water unaccounted for than it did a few years ago when new (and presumably more accurate) water meters were installed at the homes and businesses of town water customers. And revenue is down, even though the town has more town water customers than it used to have.

As the town’s public works director, Remo “Butch” Vito, put it recently, the new water meters were supposed to help decrease the amount of lost water and increase revenue, but the opposite has happened: lost water has actually increased and revenue has decreased.

“This really is mind-boggling,” Vito told selectmen last week.

Pinhole leaks in some homeowners’ underground water pipes explain at least some of the loss in town water, but it’s not clear to town officials whether they can possibly explain the whole picture.

Selectman Rob Garrity, board chairman, suggested during the selectmen’s working session meeting Tuesday, July 13 that leaks shouldn’t explain why the town’s figures for actual consumption of town water have decreased at a time when it has more customers. The new water meters should have shown at least an increase in the amount of water town water customers are using.

“But the figures show the exact opposite. Consumption goes down, dramatically, it drops 32 million gallons a year after the new meters come in. … So the leaks have got nothing to do with the drive-by meters,” Garrity said.

Garrity noted that the leaks shouldn’t affect how often residents use a washing machine or flush toilets.

Vito mentioned the continuing problem with leaks, but Selectman Jim Lehan noted that the leaks occur between the town water main and the home where the meter is.

“It doesn’t make sense, Butch. All the loss that takes place is prior to metering. If it’s metered, it’s in the house. So …why is there such a drop? We’ve had more homes. We’ve had more people hooked up. I mean, it should be up, not down,” Lehan said.

Vito said eliminating leaks would at least let town officials pinpoint the lost water problem.

At Vito’s urging, selectmen approved letters threatening shutoff of town water to home owners who haven’t replaced underground water pipes.

Some 15 homes in Norfolk are known to have leaks in their underground copper water pipes between the water main at the street and their home. Town officials believe the town may have inadvertently caused the leaks when a chemical was added to town water several years ago to try to address other problems that the state’s environmental agency had ordered addressed. But town officials say they were acting under direction from the state and according to industry standard at the time, and that therefore the town isn’t legally responsible for the pinhole leaks.

So home owners have to pay for their pipes to be replaced — and cost estimates have ranged from $2,000 to $12,000, depending on the distance between the home and the road.

Selectmen implemented a policy last year of allowing home owners to pay off the cost of replacing water pipes over time at low interest.

But some home owners have balked at replacing their water pipes. Vito said one home owner recently replaced water pipes more than a year after the town’s Department of Public Works first requested the replacement, meaning the pipes leaked water into the ground for more than a year.

But selectmen are struggling with whether even the lost water from leaks can account for all the lost water. Vito told selectmen there may be about 20 homes in total in Norfolk with leaks (which includes the 15 that have been identified).

“If you have 20 homes out there with leaks, and they all have a quarter-inch leak, you’ve still got a difference of what you’re pumping versus what you’re now accounting for of about 40 million gallons,” Lehan said.

“Some of the lines we’ve been pulling up are rattled with holes. I mean, it’s like Swiss cheese, not just one hole,” Town Administrator Jack Hathaway said.

But Lehan noted that each subsequent hole after the first hole would theoretically be subject to less water pressure, and therefore should leak less water than the first hole.

Yet while thinking it through, Lehan concluded it’s at least possible the leaks are to blame.

“I guess my point is it’s not off the wall. If you’ve got 20 homes, and that’s accurate, and you have multiple leaks, it could account for that,” Lehan said.

But another, more sinister explanation is also on town officials’ minds.

“’Cause the only other side to this is pilferage,” Vito said.

“Yeah. That’s what I’m afraid is going on,” Garrity replied.

“And that’s why we’ve got to get these letters out, get these residents to shut them down, so we can get a better handle on this thing. If we have no leaks, and we’re still seeing a differential, we’ve got someone out there pilferaging water,” Vito said.

Town officials have no suspects for drawing town water without paying for it, but Vito discussed possible ways of doing it.

“It used to be trucks, you know these swimming pool trucks? They’d get on a dead-end street, pull out of a hydrant, do something like that,” Vito said.

Another possibility is that some homes in Norfolk are receiving town water without meters recording it.

But Vito said it would have to be a lot of houses in order to explain the gap.

“How many houses could be unmetered for that amount of water? There’s something going on,” Vito said.

Lehan said he has a private well that he uses for irrigating his property. But he also said he watched the contractor connect his irrigation system to the private well, and that he saw how a contractor could connect an irrigation system to town water without much trouble.

“It’d be easy to do,” Lehan said.

The town doesn’t allow residents and business owners to connect irrigation systems to town water, at least in part because town officials are trying to meet the state environmental agency’s standard for water consumption of 65 gallons per person per day.

“It is my opinion that there are irrigation companies in this town that are putting in irrigation systems knowingly on homes that are hooked up to town water. No doubt in my mind,” Lehan said. “… They know we have a town bylaw that says you can’t do that.”

If there are irrigation systems being hooked up to town water, that would violate the town’s bylaw. If the users are hooked up to town water while circumventing a water meter to measure usage, that would amount to stealing town water.

Some observers think the town’s outright ban on allowing town residents to hook up irrigation systems to town water is counterproductive.

“So what do we do about irrigation?” Lehan said.

“We need to bring it in, we need to make it legal, we need to control it,” Vito said. “… Let’s make sure it’s being done right.”