After four days of testimony in the city of Missoula’s condemnation lawsuit against Mountain Water Company, Missoulians are still learning about the intricacies of a very complicated system. Today, March 23, HDR engineering inspector Craig Close had surprising testimony about the amount of water lost in Missoula’s system.

"It's almost unprecedented in terms of the size the amount of water by volume that their losing for how small in terms for the system for only having roughly 319 miles of main," Close said. "This is really greater then we've seen... that I've seen anywhere across the county in terms amount by volume."

According to Close, the leakage totals into billions of gallons each year.

"We're talking about over four billion gallons of water lost per year, we are talking about percentages now either approaching or exceeding, depending on how much consumption was,  roughly 50 percent water lost due to leakage," Close said.

During Cross examination Mountain Water Company attorneys pushed Close to explain how his estimated costs would increase the amount of money the city of Missoula was expecting to pay for the water system. The results of that conversation was an estimate of between 66 and 95 million dollars above and beyond whatever Missoula might end up paying for the system up front if it wins the lawsuit.

Close also said that nearly 50 percent of the water mains were 45 years and older, and that nearly 20 percent had exceeded their useful life.

 

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