R eaders have had some fun describing what 920 million gallons looks like. That's how much water Liberty Utilities lost track of in 2019.
We all know what a gallon looks like, but the millions part gets fuzzy. We described it in a recent story as enough water to fill Lake Saracen to a depth of more than 5½ feet. And if it was a swimming pool the size of a football field, it would be more than 2,000 feet deep.
One reader said if that much water was put into an Olympic-size swimming pool, the pools could be placed end to end and reach from Pine Bluff to North Little Rock.
And if you poured that much water into 1-foot-tall liter bottles, well you'd have a lot of plastic waste on your hands, but end to end, those would reach from the earth to the moon, back to earth and then almost back to the moon again.
You get the point. It's an enormous amount of water, no matter your relative description of it.
City officials also got the point. In the year before, Liberty had "only" lost track of 276 million gallons. So in one year, the utility's "lost or unaccounted for" water more than tripled.
Fast forward to the just-over water crisis. Because of the bitter conditions that went over for days on end, waterlines froze and burst, causing the entire water system to be compared to a bucket full of holes. To add to the problem, residents were letting their faucets drip to avoid such breaks. The end result was a crippled water system. Water was leaking at hundreds of places, and the water company couldn't keep line pressure up to a satisfactory level.
People had little to no water pressure at their homes. Businesses were in the same situation. Big outfits, like Jefferson Regional Medical Center and the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and even the new addition to the family, Saracen Casino Resort, had to close or curtail their operations. This was not just an inconvenience; it was a catastrophe.
For a few days, if you had gone to the ER at the hospital, they would have treated you and stabilized you. But if you had needed more care, you would have been transported elsewhere because the hospital couldn't admit you. All because of the water.
Liberty has said the problem is similar to what other water systems in the state and country experienced during the cold. And that certainly makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the extraordinarily high volume of lost water.
That 920 million gallons lost in a year is more than 2.5 million gallons per day -- water that just leaks out all across the system. During the crisis, when water was at a premium, that 2.5 million gallons a day might have kept the crisis from being so severe.
That is common sense, and it's the contention from several city leaders who were asked for comment.
Every water company loses some water, but even an executive with Liberty said the national average is 15% of total water used, while Liberty's 920 million gallons comes in at close to double that.
The answers have not been satisfactory. At a meeting on Monday, Mayor Shirley Washington asked Liberty officials about the lost water figure, but she didn't get far.
"We'll look at the inputs and see what the flows are," said Liberty Vice President Mike Beatty.
Washington pressed the issue, asking again about the numbers.
"We're looking into that," Beatty said.
Liberty handed the United Way a check for $250,000 on Thursday to help residents pay for the plumbing work to get their waterlines fixed. That is a grand gesture. That amount of money likely will be more than enough to help those who do not have the means to fix the lines themselves.
But the money should not be a free pass to skate by this mess if in fact Liberty has not been investing enough in the water system and has allowed the system to deteriorate, an allegation made by many city officials and others.
To that end, we look forward to a thorough investigation into what happened. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge has said her office will be looking into the situation, and the state Public Service Commission has gotten involved as well.
The public deserves better answers than "We're looking into it." The response to that right now is, "No, WE are looking into it!"