City Lost More Than Quarter Of Its Water in 2017

September 2018

In 2017, the Española water and sewer utility lost enough water to fill more than 140 Olympic-size swimming pools, auditors have found. That’s nearly 93 million gallons, or about 254,000 gallons per day, representing about 27 percent of all the water that came out of the utility throughout the year. Losing more than a quarter of its water over the course of a year puts the city’s water infrastructure among the top 10 most faulty utilities in New Mexico, according to a review of state Environment Department data.

Only one other water system in Rio Arriba County completed a water audit in 2016, the Lumberton Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association, which lost 28.7 percent of its water that year, higher than Española’s loss rate. Across the state’s 189 water systems, only 32 completed water audits in 2016, the latest data available. Of those, they had an average annual loss of 25.1 percent. The Red River Water System topped the list. It lost more than 73 percent of the 164 million gallons of water it supplied in 2016.