Water stewardship programs are driving down water loss across the City

San Antonio Water System (SAWS) is seeing meaningful results from its renewed focus on water stewardship, with a 12-month rolling average report showing a steady decline in water loss across the system. Since the Board of Trustees launched a system-wide initiative in 2024, departments across SAWS have implemented a range of improvements, cutting water loss by 10 gallons per connection per day, or a 2-billion-gallon improvement

This positive trend is continuing into 2025, putting SAWS on track to meet long-term goals to curb non-revenue water loss — water that is produced but never billed due to leaks, metering issues, or authorized but unbilled uses like system maintenance and firefighting.

While water loss caused by aging infrastructure is not unique to San Antonio, SAWS is at the industry forefront of these prevention efforts.

“Because our 8,000 miles of water pipes are buried underground, solving the problem of breaks and leaks will take time and it will be costly,” said Jeff Haby, SAWS Vice President of Production. “The good news is we have already redoubled our efforts on leak detection and repair, and our new ConnectH2O electronic meters are making sure customer use is measured more accurately than ever.”

SAWS’ water stewardship strategy began with one key principle: more precise measurement. Since then, the utility has implemented multiple initiatives to better track and reduce water loss, including:

• Improved metering at production sources
• Investment of $220M in citywide installation of ConnectH2O electronic meters for more precise customer data such as early detection of leaks
• Better assessments of water lost through leaks and main breaks
• More accurate accounting of authorized but unbilled uses, like firefighting and system flushing

In addition to better tracking, SAWS is focused on reducing water lost through leaks and breaks by:

• Expanding proactive leak detection programs
• Improving response times for repairs
• Exploring emerging leak detection technologies such as satellite imagery
• Prioritizing water main replacement projects in leak-prone areas

To learn more about how SAWS is preserving San Antonio’s water through its Non-Revenue Water Program, visit saws.org/stewardship.