Illinois American Water encourages customers to fix leaks and prevent water waste during Fix a Leak Week
 

[March 21, 2019]  LINCOLN - Illinois American Water is leveraging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Fix a Leak Week to help decrease water waste. The annual Fix a Leak Week campaign, organized by the EPA’s WaterSense program, will be observed this week, March 18-24. The national campaign helps to raise awareness about small leaks and other water issues that may waste water within homes and businesses.

“For Illinois American Water, this week is about empowering our customers to use water wisely,” said Mike Smyth, vice president of operations. “That drip in the downstairs utility sink can mean thousands of gallons of water lost in a year. If each customer does their part, a huge impact can be made to prevent water waste.”

According to the EPA, the average residence in the U.S. loses 10,000 gallons of water per year thanks to seemingly minor leaks. With more than 110 million households in the U.S., this equates to more than one trillion gallons of water lost every year due to leaks in the home.

“Most people may not realize that even the smallest leaks can waste thousands of gallons per year,” said Smyth. “A shower head losing 10 drips per minute wastes 500 gallons of water in a year—you could run 60 loads of dishes through the dishwasher with that amount of water. If every one of our Illinois customers fixed a household leak, they could contribute to millions, or even billions, of gallons of water saved in a year.”

Illinois American Water offers these tips for detecting leaks:

□ Check your water meter at the start and end of a two-hour period during which no water is being used (i.e. when no one is home). If the meter changes, there most likely is a leak.

□ Place a drop of food coloring in your toilet tank and see if the water in the bowl changes colors within 10 minutes. If so, you have a leak.

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□ At least once a season—and especially after extreme temperature changes—check faucet gaskets and pipe fittings for surface leaks, indicated by water on the exterior of the pipes.

Download a leak detection kit at www.amwater.com/ilaw/water-information/detecting-leak. Include children in learning with interactive games and more at https://www.epa.gov/water sense/watersense-kids#tab-4.

About Illinois American Water – Illinois American Water, a subsidiary of American Water (NYSE: AWK), is the largest investor-owned water utility in the state, providing high-quality and reliable water and/or wastewater services to approximately 1.3 million people. American Water also operates a customer service center in Alton and a quality control and research laboratory in Belleville. With a history dating back to 1886, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly-traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 7,100 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to over 14 million people in 45 states and Ontario, Canada.

American Water provides safe, clean, affordable and reliable water services to our customers to make sure we keep their lives flowing. For more information, visit amwater.com

[Karen Cotton]