Logan City Public Work Crews repairing water main break at 500 East 1000 North, Feb. 13, 2023.
LOGAN – Among about 2.3 million miles of water mains in the United States and Canada, a significant number are defective and should be replaced.
The people at Utah State University’s Water Research Lab (UWRL) recently published their third report in the last 12 years regarding water main breaks across North America.
Primary researcher, Dr. Steven L. Barfuss, said the infrastructure in the two countries is aging, causing water pipelines to deteriorate. UWRL analyzed several hundred thousand miles of pipe data — representing about 17 percent of the water mains in the two countries — and determined 452,000 miles of water pipes in the U.S. and Canada are beyond their useful lives and need to be replaced.
Barfuss said it would cost $452 billion to correct those problems.
Other major findings of the USU study: utilities report the average failure age of water pipe is 53 years; the estimated average water loss to leakage is 11 percent; PVC pipe has the lowest break rate when compared to cast iron, ductile iron, steel and asbestos cement pipes; and the U.S. and Canada experience 260,000 water main breaks annually.
“It costs $10,000, on average, for every water main break that occurs,” said Barfuss.
A copy of the full report is available through USU Libraries Digital Commons.
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