Water Leak In Village Drains Away 750,000-plus Gallons

Sometimes water leaks in drips and drops. Sometimes in bucketfuls.

But rarely does water leak to the tune of somewhere between 750,000 to 800,000 gallons and possibly more than 1 million gallons - as it did from the pipe running between the water main and the home at N60W23774 Butternut Lane.

The leak was discovered only after the water had been draining way for months late last year, said Village Engineer and Director of Public Works Eric Nitschke.

How much is 800,000 gallons?

Enough fill one-gallon jugs placed side by side in a string 70 miles long, or roughly from here to Madison. Or enough to fill the volume of a football field including end zones surrounded by walls 14 feet high.

"There was no apparent drop in water pressure when we did our leak detection program in that neighborhood, but as the year progressed, the resident reported lower water pressure inside the home. That's when the matter became urgent," Nitschke told members of the village's Water Commission last week.

The underground waterway became even more apparent when the homeowner, Dorothy Drefahl, and a contractor she had hired, noticed that ground under a section of her paved driveway was "absolutely soaked. Water squished out when he jumped on it," Drefahl said.

"It's very hard to nail down just how long the leak was occurring and therefore how much water was actually lost," Nitschke explained.

The village estimates the duration at somewhere between three and nine months and the loss at least as high as 750,000 to 800,000 gallons though amounts of 2 million gallons or more of lost drinking water have been discussed by village officials.

"Oh, my goodness," Drefahl said. "Is that possible?"

"I guess they say that even a small drip in a faucet can eventually add up to a huge amount of water," answering her own question. "Oh, my gosh." 

"I'm comfortable saying that 750,000 to 800,000 gallons were definitely lost and that it was potentially much more, but there is really no way of knowing that, so I can't make an estimate into those higher ranges,"Nitschke said. "It would be really speculative.

"The homeowner will not be billed for the water. It never went through her meter," he said.

The excavation and repair of the water lateral may end up costing the homeowner several thousand dollars depending on whether any of the mishap is covered by insurance, or if the contractor who originally installed the lateral is found to have erred in doing the work, Nitschke explained.

"We've lived here for nineteen years," Drefahl said. "They showed me the pipe where the leak was located when it got dug up."

"We're living on top of bedrock here, so in that way we're lucky, or things might have been washed away," Drefahl said.

"If the village is going to stand the bill for that much water, then I'm more than grateful because I don't know how I would ever be able to pay for it," Drefahl said.

Nitschke credits Water Foreman Ralph Rutkowski for doing a "phenomenal job in running the village's water system."

"Our leak detection program has really tighted up the Sussex system from say, five years ago," Nitschke said.

"Wasted water is a problem in all municipal water systems, but some communities have a much, much bigger, ongoing problem than here in Sussex," Nitschke said.

Editor's Note: Watch for a follow-up article on the village's extensive leak detection program.