It's a staggering number: Roughly 4 million gallons of drinking water are lost every day in the city of Durham, primarily due to pipe breaks and leaks. What's perhaps even more shocking is that that number is better than the national average.
WRAL Investigates obtained the data through a public records request. WRAL Investigates sought the same information from the City of Raleigh in March. A spokesperson said the City did not receive the initial request, and then provided us with its data.
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A spokesperson said, last year, it averaged a loss of 3.5 million gallons per day, some of which was water lost due to intentional flushing for quality, or for new construction. The spokesperson said that amounts to roughly 6 or 7% of the system’s total water.
According to data provided by Durham's Water Management Department, an average of 3.94 million gallons of drinking water were lost daily in Durham in the 2024 calendar year. That is water that had been treated, but had not yet made it to a customer's home. In total, roughly 1.4 billion gallons of drinking water was lost from the system last year.
The city's Water Resource Planning Manager Reginald Hicks said although that sounds like a large number, it is better than the national average.
The loss amounts to about 13% of the system's water in Durham. Nationally, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average loss is closer to 16%.
WRAL Investigates asked Hicks what they are doing to proactively address the issue.
"Our distribution division does have a maintenance staff," he said. "So I would think they are proactive in looking at that issue."
Hicks said the surest way to prevent a leak or break is to replace aging pipes. On West Club Boulevard, a replacement project is underway now. City documents indicate the pipes that were there were close to 100 years old.
Replacing pipes is not cheap.
"We have over 1,200 miles of distribution lines," Hicks said. "So that's a lot of pipe."
For just one project about to get underway downtown, the price tag is nearly $28 million.
In the proposed budget for next year, the City Manager set aside $315.7 million for water and sewer improvements.
Eric Thomas, who lives in Durham, thinks it's money well spent.
"Oh, for sure," he said. "We need to invest in the infrastructure. Do it proactively, rather than retroactively."
As far as how each one of us can make a difference, City Water employees say if you see a leak, which may be obvious like water shooting out of the ground, or more covert, like a slow trickle down the side of the street, report it by calling them at 919-560-4344, regardless of the time of day.
"Obviously we'll never get to zero," Water Efficiency and Conservation Program Manager James Lim said. "But I think doing what we can to save water is really, really important, and that includes everybody."