If they ever decide to dedicate one month out of the year to “National Backflow/Cross Connection Prevention Month” it should be April. Before I go on, let me explain what “Backflow/Cross Connection” is, since I probably sounded a little like an adult in a Charlie Brown Special.

Backflow is the consequence of a cross connection between non-potable and potable water lines. Still hearing Charlie Brown’s teacher? In the most basic of situations, if you have a garden hose connected to your outdoor spigot without a backflow preventer on the spigot, you are at risk of siphoning fertilizer and herbicide laden water into your home’s drinking water supply. It’s even more likely when your water system is hooked to an automated sprinkler (permanent underground irrigation) system. Backflow preventers are required under the statewide uniform building code when an irrigation system is installed on your home.

We know that likely 25 percent of our customers have an automated irrigation system. But, we don’t know which customers they are. Only the Loudoun County plumbing department would know who has a system, based on the permit that must be issued by the County to your irrigation system contractor when he goes to install your new system. If you were not asked to obtain a permit, or if your contractor didn’t mention this to you at installation, there is a chance your contractor also did not install the backflow/cross connection preventer.

April marks the time of year when everyone awakes from winter slumber with a firm slap to the “on” button on the automatic sprinkler system.Therefore, I dub April “Unofficial National Backflow/Cross Connection Prevention Month.” In honor of this, I suggest you check with your irrigation contractor that one has indeed been installed on your system and if not, run, do not walk, to your nearest contractor and have one installed. Without it, you are putting your family at risk of poisoning your water supply.

Incidentally, if you used a Loudoun Water Preferred Irrigation Contractor, you can be assured your system has a backflow preventer. 

More information about Backflow/Cross Connection.

For this week's post, I thought I share an email I received this morning from the folks at Tapped (a documentary that aims to change our collective minds about tap water - in a good way). The following is a direct re-post from their email:

Today is a day that will go unnoticed by far too many – March 22 is World Water Day. It’s a day sanctioned by the United Nations to bring awareness to the fact that by 2030, two-thirds of the world will lack access to clean drinking water. The severity of this crisis has prompted the United Nations to conclude that water scarcity will be the chief constraint to increased food production in the next few decades. The threat to water resources stands as one of the major crises facing the planet. Unfortunately World Water Day hasn’t achieved the same visibility as Earth day... not yet anyway. We hope all that will change after today.

We at Tapped feel that one day is not enough to do justice to all the water issues that deserve our attention. As a result we have turned Water Day into Water Week and will take the next 5 days to address a different water theme each day. Come back every day to see the newest videos, public service announcements and guest columns we’ll post here daily.

The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.

Please join us in a campaign to raise the awareness of the severe water crisis we are facing in America and around the world. Currently more than one out of six people lack access to safe drinking water - that number will only increase unless we do something about it now.

LESS THAN 1% OF THE WORLD’S FRESH WATER IS READILY ACCESSIBLE FOR HUMAN USE

Water is something so many of us take for granted. We think it’s available in unlimited supplies, yet 20 percent more water than is now available will be needed to feed the additional three billion people who will be alive by 2025.

VISITwww.tappedthemovie.com to sign legislation that protects our water supplies, repairs our infrastructure, and keeps water a public right rather than a commodity that can be bought and sold like any other article of commerce.

SHAREour videos and editorials with your friends, family and loved ones... This week, the Tapped website will feature celebrity guest columns by Ed Begley Jr and David de Rothschild, a public service announcement by Grammy Winner Jack Johnson, plus daily videos and bonus clips from the film.

READ our water saving tips and daily blog to find out how small changes you make will have a big impact.

“There is enough water for human need but not for human greed...” www.tappedthemovie.com

Stephanie Soechtig
Director, Tapped
www.tappedthemovie.com

*Forward this email to anyone you love*

Did you know that Americans lose about 10,000 gallons per home per year to leaks? This week (March 15-21) is National Fix a Leak Week, so get your tools and we’ll share with you some of the best ways to catch, fix and prevent leaks in your home. But first, for a laugh, check out the videos we’ve created and posted to YouTube and our Facebook page (search for Loudoun Water) to remind folks to fix and check leaks this week.

Catch Those Running Toilets
The easiest way to detect leaks is by using your ears. A running toilet is a leaking toilet and the most common culprit of the household leak. But don’t let your ears deceive you. Sometimes, toilet leaks can be quiet. It’s best to check them once per year (Fix a Leak Week makes a good time). To check for a silent leaky toilet, add a few drops of food coloring to the back of your tank (the spot the tissue box sits on) and wait 10 minutes before flushing. If the color appears in the bowl, your toilet is leaking. Nine times out of ten, it’s a rubber flapper that’s gotten old and started to disintegrate. A new one will run you less than $5 and takes just a minute to install.

Fix Them Fast!  
Fixing Leaks – Here are some instructions and videos from EPA for fixing leaks around your home, including one on fixing toilet leaks.

Prevent Leaks
As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So, how do you prevent leaks? Sometimes, there’s nothing you can do – leaks happen as fixtures become old and worn. But, here are some things you can do:

Annually visually inspect your internal plumbing. Look for cracked or worn joints and lines of pipe or wet drywall and make repairs as needed.

Check your Pressure Reducing Valve (PRV) to be sure it’s not set too high. The upper limit should be 80 psi. Anything higher will likely stress your pipes, causing them to knock and eventually leak or burst.

Insulate water lines in crawl spaces to prevent freezing and breaks.

Drain lines to the outside spigot before the first frost each fall to prevent a break.

What other ideas do you have? Please share them here, and fix those leaks, this week!

Last week we hosted nearly 30 irrigation contractors at our office for irrigation training, and to reveal to them our latest findings on a "Smart" controller pilot program we're conducting. This is the second year of this training and the second year for our "Preferred Irrigation Contractor" program. This program was initiated to open up lines of communication between Loudoun Water and irrigation professionals so they are aware of our demand issues and can help be a partner in protecting your water supply for the long term. Here's how it works:

If an irrigation company is licensed to do business in Loudoun, has become an EPA WaterSense partner, has at least one Certified Irrigation Contractor or Designer on staff, and has attended our annual training event, then they are eligible to be a Loudoun Water Preferred Irrigation Contractor. Through this partnership, participants have an edge over their competition in terms of a limited endorsement from us. Though we do not evaluate or make any promises as to their service style, we are confident they have the training, credentials and attitude to help you obtain a system that's been designed, installed and maintained properly, so you don't waste water. 

In exchange for that alignment with us, Loudoun Water obtains a partner in messaging about wise water use, and a real chance at affecting good wise water use behavior. One of the primary actions we ask for as part of the partnership is the irrigation contractor's assistance in setting systems to follow our preferred watering schedule, which is Odd addresses on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Even addresses on Thursdays and Sundays, and Commercial or Multi-family addresses on Tuesdays and Fridays, with noone watering on Mondays. This schedule helps distribute the demand for water more evenly over the course of the week as opposed to on the same manufacturer preset days. This protects our assets for the long term, helping to defer major investments further into the future.

So, whether you have an irrigation system already or are thinking about one, make sure your contractor is Loudoun Water Preferred.  

Assets are the life blood of your utility. These are the pipes, pumps, manholes, hydrants, etc. that enable us to provide water services to you. Without proper attention, your utility will not function properly and has the potential to create an undesirable public health situation.

I’m talking about what we call ‘asset management’ and it means understanding the what and where of your water, reclaimed water, and wastewater networks. For Loudoun Water, asset management begins with the GIS (geographic information system). Please learn more about GIS from our software vendor, ESRI, but what I tell my mom is that it’s a computer map. When your utility is extended, it is absolutely critical that we know where this has occurred. The GIS is our means for accomplishing this and provides Loudoun Water with a single, seamless view of all your assets. If someone in the company asks a question with the word where in it, the answer is in the GIS.

We use GIS to support all aspects of our business and the GIS team performs updates on a daily basis. Our utility protection team (the folks who respond with blue, purple and green paint when you call Miss Utility) are the ‘mission critical’ 24/7/365 GIS users, so we’ve got them set up with a portable view into the GIS that they can take on the road with them. Our engineering team uses GIS to see where assets currently exist and so that they can effectively support our development community partners as they extend your utility. Maintenance staff rely on GIS details like where is the nearest valve to the pipe break so that they can quickly affect a repair while impacting the fewest number of customers. Our planners and senior staff need to see a high-level view of major assets that is uncluttered by the hundreds of miles of small-diameter piping you own. These are just a few examples.

One way we make our GIS data useful and usable is by showing your assets overlaid on what we call ‘base map’ data. Base map data includes streets, buildings, property boundaries and aerial photography. We are extremely fortunate to have an excellent relationship with the Loudoun County Office of Mapping who share their very detailed and highly-accurate data with us free of charge. 

Your assets are considered ‘sensitive’ (we don’t want the bad guys to mess with your drinking water) and one way we protect them is by keeping GIS data secure. If you’d like to see what the GIS looks like, you are welcome to come to our office; we’d love to show it to you. If you’re interested, we can zoom the map to your home and explore how water flows to and from there. Bring the kids and we’ll find the nearest water valve, fire hydrant and sewer manhole so that on the drive home, you can talk about the pipes buried beneath the road and imagine how they are connected to the things above ground that you can see.

Submitted and Written By Senior GIS Analyst Craig Lees