Water loss continues to decline as crews work to repair the numerous leaks across Bentonville’s water system. However, it’s hard to get a clear sense of exactly where the city stands in its quest to solve the issue.

Most leaks come from the service lines that connect residential meters to water mains. If the water leaks before reaching the meter, the water utility doesn’t bill the customer and takes a financial hit. 

Comparing October to January, monthly water loss – the amount purchased from wholesaler Beaver Water District but lost to leaks – is down 18.4%, Donnie Schmidt with the water utility told the city’s finance committee Tuesday.

The number of known water leaks is also down – a data dashboard shows 831 active leaks, down from 1,200 leaks when it was first published this summer. 

Still, it’s difficult to determine when the work will be done as new leaks continue to be reported by customers and, in some cases, are created or exposed during repair work.

Many of the faulty lines that have sprung leaks were installed in subdivisions built between 2005 and 2010, and crews are concentrating their efforts in those neighborhoods now.

Equipment used to dig up a faulty line can disturb other lines nearby, potentially leading to a new leak. And when a leak is repaired, it can change pressure and flow conditions in that part of the system, sometimes exposing weak points in neighboring lines that were already close to failing.

With most of the lines in those subdivisions seemingly flawed, it’s probably a matter of when, not if, they’ll leak, Schmidt said.

“Let's say we go to this subdivision, we fix seven of them. What we're finding is three, or four, or six – shoot, who knows how many – pop up,” he said.

For that reason, staff find the system’s overall water loss numbers to be a better barometer of progress in fixing the issue than the number of leaks repaired.

The repairs are costly, hence the doubling of water rates earlier this year. The city has spent $6,147,552.16 on replacing service lines so far, and the utility estimates it will take about 2.2 years to recover that cost, Schmidt said. 

Several city council members on the finance committee expressed satisfaction with the repair progress and, at its meeting later that night, the city council approved an additional $500,000 to pay the two contractors assisting with leak repairs.

Water leaks can be reported via a form at Bentonville311.com.

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