Water Main Leaked 105 Million Gallons In East Austin This Year

Breaks in a 66-inch-long East Austin water main leaked about 105 million gallons of potable water this year.

The massive transmission main near Johnny Morris road took about five months to fix and cost the city $1,1 million. Leak logs previously obtained by KXAN showed the volume and repair costs were 10 times larger than any other leak since Jan. 1, 2013. The leak and maintenance lasted from Jan. 29 through June 28, but has since been fully repaired.

“This is a very large main so you can’t just turn it on and off,” Austin Water Utility spokesman Jason Hill told Patch when asked what took the water main so long to be repaired.

Hill explained that Austin Water Utility performs routine monitoring and maintenance on the city’s over 4,000 miles of water pipes.

“We brought in state-of-the-art technology to determine where the leaks were. Our engineers were able to devise strategies and plans of action to help repair the main….everything is monitored on a regular basis,” Hill said.

Logs of potable water line breaks that occurred between 2013 and 2015 obtained by KXAN showed the largest and most expensive single leak during this time was estimated at 9.5 million gallons of water and cost $78,000 to repair.