HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — It’s a sight becoming increasingly common for Houstonians: gushing water spewed from broken city pipes left to leak onto public sidewalks and roads for days, sometimes even weeks.
According to officials with Houston Public Works during a service delivery committee meeting last Wednesday, the problem has just gotten progressively worse over the last four years.
The department said it received 9,143 reports of leaks in 2020, 11,831 in 2021, 12,128 in 2022, and 13,911 in 2023.
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The leaks in 2023 translated to 31.8 billion gallons of water lost in Houston just from pipe leaks. That’s enough to supply water to the entire City of Fort Worth, which has a population of about 900,000 people.
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Director of Water Greg Eyerly told city council members that aging infrastructure, coupled with rapid population growth and more frequent severe weather, are the primary reasons for the increasing numbers.
As a result, Senior Division Manager Mandi Siebels explained Houston Public Works hasn’t been able to replace pipes quickly enough to meet industry standards. Ideally, the department would’ve replaced 2,800 miles of pipes over the last 10 years, which comes out to 20% of the city’s water lines.
However, Siebels said that they’ve only been able to replace 850 miles in the last decade, which equates to 6% of Houston’s pipes.
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According to Public Works officials, water pipe maintenance is just one part of a long list of critical upgrades needed for the city’s utility, which supplies water to more than five million people in the region. ABC13’s content partner, the Houston Chronicle, reported the total price tag for these projects is $4.93 billion.
Eyerly and his team will head to Austin on Tuesday to testify about Houston’s water infrastructure needs and ask state lawmakers for money during their committee meetings. However, he anticipates that they will also need to request funding at the federal level.
Houston Public Works could not provide a comment on Monday due to the Labor Day office closure. However, in a statement to the Houston Chronicle last week, a spokesperson said there are no plans to pass costs along to residents to help pay for water infrastructure improvements.
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