CUC finds unmetered Garapan water lines

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has discovered that more than 10 establishments in Garapan and even some public school buildings have water lines that are not metered, which means they are not making money for CUC.

Kevin Watson, CUC’s deputy executive director for the Water and Wastewater Division, disclosed during a Senate Public Utilities, Transportation & Communications Committee meeting last week that they are installing new sewer lines in Garapan and discovered while doing the excavation the water lines of more than 10 establishments that are connected to CUC’s watermain or waterline, but aren’t metered.

“The water pipe was coming directly from our watermain and it goes toward the buildings without a meter,” Watson said.

He said it’s hard to identify buildings that aren’t metered when water lines are buried underground.

Watson agreed with committee chair Sen. Paul A. Manglona (Ind-Rota) that these establishments are probably not aware of it as they are just renting the buildings. For some of these buildings, they may not have any customers at all as the buildings may be vacant.

In the meantime, Watson said, they are cutting the line until such time that when a new business takes possession of a building and applies for a water meter.

He also disclosed that even some public school buildings were found to be unmetered.

“And we are correcting that. We are instituting a new work order system, for instance, called non revenue water and non revenue wastewater and that way we can correct these deficiencies in our system without waiting for somebody to put an application for our meter,” Watson said.

Using the Public School System as an example, Watson said they will install a master meter for the entire school, so that all the water being used by the school will be metered.

Watson estimated CUC’s water loss per year at around 60% and a lot of that is due to inaccurate meters.

He said the condition of water here is very high in chlorides and total dissolved solids, which damages water meters. Industry standards dictate high quality water that goes through the meters.

“Here [on ]Saipan we don’t have that luxury of high quality water. So the water meter will lose its accuracy. You have a higher flow of water going through the meter, but the water that has been built or being measured is much less than the true volume of water going through that meter. So it also attacks the pipes and causes leaks,” Watson said.

He said they are making efforts to determine where leaks are in the system and fixing those.

“When we find a leak, we send out a crew immediately. We don’t wait for 48 hours for a shutdown,” he said.

In response to Sen. Corina L. Magofna’s (Ind-Saipan) questions, Watson said his estimate is that 50% of CUC’s water loss is due to inaccurate meters. Watson said they are currently working with a consultant for a water loss audit and that will put a dollar figure on that loss.

Watson said they are putting in new water meters in their 15 reservoir sites. Each of those sites, he said, are what they call tank service areas or TSA, to be able to know exactly what amount is being served in that area.

“We are linking that up with the billing meters so we can see where to devote our efforts for links as well as inactive meters,” Watson said.

Watson said it is computerized and they are able to analyze the reports.

Watson said the meter bench test will be going into operation within three to six months.

“We’re putting priority and expediting meters for the tanks and they’re being designed right now. So we are wanting to expedite that because we see the importance and the benefit that we’re getting from that,” he added.

Kevin Watson