San Francisco Public Utilities Fee expands leak alert program | Bay Space
To conserve water under drought conditions nationwide, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission announced Thursday that it is expanding a leak warning program that will notify customers of uninterrupted water usage.
The program now notifies both commercial and industrial buildings as well as apartment buildings if they have been using water continuously for three days, which could indicate a leak.
The program will continue to serve single-family and small apartment buildings as it did before, SFPUC officials said.
“I applaud SFPUC for this proactive move to expand the city’s Leak Alert program at such a critical time,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “Given the historic drought, we must do everything we can to fix leaks, protect our water supplies, and cut costs for our residents and local businesses.”
“As long as this drought persists, we need to save the best we can of water, and often that simply means fixing leaky pipes, faucets and toilets,” said Michael Carlin, deputy director general of SFPUC.
In addition to the expansion, the SFPUC will also examine industrial and multi-family houses with more than three units for an increase in water consumption of 50% and more within the last 90 days as well as for peaks in night-time use.
SFPUC officials estimate the Leak Alert program saved 47 million gallons of water in the past fiscal year.
As drought conditions continue to intensify across the state, Governor Gavin Newsom urged all Californians last month to voluntarily reduce water use by 15%.
