The Power and Water Corporation has conducted inspections on almost 5,000 household water meters in Alice Springs searching for water leaks.
The five day event revealed that 972 homes (one in five) in Alice Springs has a suspected leak. This amounts to wasting 286 million litres of water per year, costing homeowners over half a million dollars ($547, 000) collectively.
Power and Water’s Manager in Sustainable Development, Mark Wiltshire, said “It’s like throwing away 25 wheelie bins of water per household per week or 1.2 million wheelie bins of precious water per year.”
“The detected leaks could fill 130 Alice Springs Aquatic Centres or 115 Olympic swimming pools,” he said.
The water meter checks are part of The Power and Water Corporation’s ‘Leak Week’ blitz event that focuses on preserving the town’s most precious resource.
“Leak Week is a very innovative and unique program in Australia and the people of Alice Springs have responded very positively, with some of them fixing their leaks the same day they were found,” Mr Wiltshire said.
“While leaks in one in five homes is a lot of wasted water, this is actually an improvement from the 2011-2013 Alice Water Smart program when water efficiency consultations in 1000 homes found one in three homes had a leak,” he said.
Power and Water also launched a new edition of the Alice Water Smart Guide with water saving information specific to the Alice Springs’ climate.
