Rockford has 1.3 billion gallons of water it cannot account for each year. City workers will embark this week on the second year of a program to reduce water loss.
Rockford's water division in 2016 pumped and treated 6.4 billion gallons of drinking water from wells. But meters show just 5.1 billion gallons made it to the city's 55,000 customers. The remaining 1.3 billion gallons of water are enough to fill almost 2,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Specialists are exploring explanations for the phenomenon. Possibilities include water leaks, meters misreading how much water was pumped and consumed or water lost to uses like firefighting.
Rockford reduced its water loss from 24% to 20% last year by fixing leaks. The goal is to continue decreasing losses by 960 million gallons annually.
