When water goes missing, who you gonna call?

The creek was there for as long as anyone in this leafy Clayton County suburb could remember. A real estate listing even advertised the charms of its trilling flow.

Recently, sophisticated sonar equipment pinpointed a leak in a nearby 6-inch-diameter main. Utility crews patched the pipe. To everyone's surprise, the stream – complete with gravelly banks, a gully, and mud critters – dried up.

Though finally solved, the mystery of the creek that was a leak is an example of how utility districts in the US can't account for 6 billion gallons of drinking water each day. If all that lost water were collected over the course of a year, it would fill Gatun Lake, the huge reservoir that feeds the Panama Canal.

There are signs that some utilities are tightening the screws on water loss, especially in places confronting extended drought or a development boom.

Georgia recently began requiring counties seeking water-withdrawal permits to first check their waterworks for leaks. Three other states, including Tennessee, are tightening water audit requirements, and the American Water Works Association (AWWA) has persuaded 300 communities to take part in a public-service campaign called "Only Tap Water Delivers," in part prompted by mounting water losses.

Communities here in the South, one of the most water-rich corners of the US, are starting to put "leak detectives" on missing water cases.

According to the AWWA in Denver, the nation needs to spend some $250 billion in the next 20 to 30 years to upgrade its tap-water delivery systems, which were built primarily in three phases – the turn of the 20th century, the roaring '20s, and right after World War II. Most of that cost is likely to show up on consumers' water bills.

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