Phoenix resident frustrated by 14-day delay in fixing water main leak
Phoenix resident reacts to 14-day water leak
A local homeowner describes the reality of waiting two weeks for city crews to finalize a water line repair. The city defends its timeframe, citing a goal of under 14 days. FOX 10's Steve Nielsen reports.
PHOENIX - The next time you see a water main break in the desert, consider this: the water gushing out of that pipe is gone.
Water pipes break in the city of Phoenix more than you might think and because of that, Phoenix loses billions of gallons of water every year.
A recent repair took two weeks and raised a lot of concerns for residents about how much water went down the drain.
Local perspective:
The leak was at a resident's home, and the homeowner says it was gushing for days and days and days. So the question becomes, how long should it take to repair a water leak in a desert?
David Bentley woke up to a gushing leak at his Phoenix home, so he called the city.
"They left this on my door and said, 'Yeah, it's a city issue.' So, I'm like, 'OK, it's not my problem,'" Bentley said.
Or so he thought.
Phoenix resident David Bentley
He called back a few times, but days passed. His first call was June 9. It wasn't until June 19 that crews arrived to work.
"Crews showed up. They started digging, and now it's like 10 o'clock at night, and they can't find the main," Bentley said.
The crews left, but the water kept flowing.
"It would be like taking two garden hoses out here, turning them on full blast and running them for two straight weeks," Bentley said.
What they're saying:
Brandy Kelso, the water services director for the city of Phoenix, emphasized the value of the resource.
"It is absolutely our most precious resource. We do, every day, try to manage it very well," Kelso said.
Kelso says they try to address leaks as quickly as possible, but there are limitations between staffing and even finding the true source of the leak.
"Our average used to be 28 days. That's what we strove for. About two years ago, we decided to cut that in half and strive for under 14 days, and we currently are trending that way. Most are under 14 days," Kelso said.
Phoenix says they lose about 9% of the city's water every year to leaks and unaccounted things like fire hydrant use. Doing the math, that comes out to 10 billion to 11 billion gallons of water a year lost.
But the city says that's actually much lower than the national average of water loss at 16%.
"When we produce over a hundred billion gallons a year, it does become a big number but still a small portion," Kelso said.
Bentley says after the crews left on June 19, they didn't come back for a few days.
"I call on that Monday, 'Hey, you guys going to come fix this thing?' She goes, ‘Yeah, I think a crew might come out.’ I go, 'OK, there's tens of thousands of gallons of water gushing out,'" Bentley said.
The leak was finally repaired June 23, 14 days after the initial call, and within the timeframe goal the city strives for.
"That's part of owning a utility. We're going to have leaks. We're going to have times water mains break. But we're doing our best to maintain that and keep that number as low as we can," Kelso said.
Dig deeper:
The visual contrast of the loss remains a striking image for neighbors.
"Our HOA is talking about taking out grass and putting in rocks and desert scapes to conserve water and then to look out your front door and seeing the water going down the street is insane," Bentley said.
Knowing the average repair has gone from 28 to 14 days in the last two years, the question was raised if there are any plans to improve on that more. City officials said they consider all the data.