WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) - Waterloo lost 18.5 percent of all the water it pumped last year and does not know where it went, a top utility official said.

Waterloo Water Works General Manager Dennis Clark told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that 2013 was an especially bad year for “unaccounted” water. The utility lost 851 million gallons of water, enough to fill up 1,300 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

“Frankly, we just don’t know where it went,” Clark said.

Clark said some of the missing water was due to flushing mains and hydrants, fighting fires and leaks.

The missing water represents about 18.5 percent of all water pumped by the utility. It compares to a 15 percent loss in 2012 and was the highest level of lost water in the past six years.

Waterloo Water works is trying to reduce the water losses through a variety of means, including locating leaks and repairing service lines more quickly.

“We have been taking steps to reduce this number, including changing some of our metering policies, trying to get construction meters set more quickly, encouraging repairs to service lines as quickly as possible, and the purchase of a leak correlator to help locate water leaks in the distribution system,” Clark said.

The utility added 2.36 miles of water mains in 2013. That brings the total distribution system to 387 miles of mains.

The number of fire hydrants also increased, up 21 to 3,227 by Dec. 31.

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Information from: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, https://www.wcfcourier.com

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