A new dashboard offers insight into the status of the many water leaks spread throughout Bentonville.

It went live about a month ago and currently shows around 1,200 active, confirmed leaks, which are largely caused by flawed pipes that carry water from mains to houses.

The City’s decision to double water rates earlier this year was wildly contentious, with residents expressing outrage over the steep hike. At the time, city leaders said the increase was necessary to fund water leak repairs. In 2024, Bentonville’s water utility lost 54 percent of the water it received on the supply side.

With multiple outside contractors now assisting with repairs, progress on fixing the leaks has picked up in recent months, said Donnie Schmidt, a manager with the water utility.

In June, 233 water lines were replaced, and 37 leaks were temporarily repaired. Before the contractors were brought on, the water utility was averaging just 10 to 15 repairs and replacements per week, Schmidt said.

Beyond tracking the overall situation, the dashboard also allows residents to see whether a specific leak has already been reported. If it hasn’t, they can report it through the Bentonville 311 website.

Many of the leaks are due to faulty water lines in housing developments built in the 2000s.

For example, in Eagle Creek, a west Bentonville neighborhood with about 100 single-family homes, there are 31 active leaks, according to the dashboard. Another 14 lines have already been replaced, and six other leaks have been temporarily fixed. The homes in the neighborhood were built around 2005.

Replacing the lines is more complicated than it might seem on the surface.

One faulty water line might require replacing multiple other lines, due to the way they connect to the water main. If crews replaced only the leaky lines, the disruption from digging could trigger additional leaks, so those lines need to be replaced as well.

“We’re replacing the leaking ones, but we’re also being proactive in replacing the other ones, even though they might not be leaking now,” Schmidt said. “Our experience, our history is, six months from now, it’s going to leak because we disturbed the area around it and its bad material.”