THE Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) has installed water flow meters in 280 fire hydrants located in eight local government units to monitor non-revenue water (NRW) in its entire franchise area.
NRW refers to water that has been produced and is “lost” before it reaches customers.
Jose Daluz III, chairman of MCWD’s board of directors, said their NRW currently stands at 31 percent, which makes up 74,000 cubic meters out of the 240,000 cubic meters the water district has supplied in the last six months.
The percentage is over the acceptable minimum rate of 20 percent set under the Local Water Utilities Administration Board Resolution 444, but is lower than the 33 percent NRW the MCWD incurred after super typhoon Odette struck on December 16, 2021.
Daluz said they couldn’t control the extraction of water between January and June 2022 as some people resorted to cutting MCWD pipes just to have access to water.
With the water flow meter, he said the MCWD could determine how many cubic meter of water was extracted from each fire hydrant and the NRW.
He said the MCWD hopes to lower its NRW to 28 percent in 2023 and 25 percent in 2024, which is the average NRW of water districts in the country. (PAC, PJB)