How these numbers are made
Nothing on this index is a proprietary score. Every figure is either as-filed or computed from as-filed values, and each page says which.
The one thing worth reading before citing anything here: the index reports three verdicts on a filed water balance, not two. It either closes, fails to close by a stated amount, or cannot be checked at all because the filing does not publish the components. The third is the most common and it must never be read as a pass — a check that cannot fail is not a check.
Method
How the sources are read and what is computed from them.
- How the water loss index is built — Every source, every computation, and every place the index refuses to produce a number — including why most filings are marked unverifiable rather than passing.
Definitions
The vocabulary a water audit uses, and why the distinctions matter.
- Apparent loss — Water that reached a customer and was never billed — the component of water loss that is recoverable revenue inside a budget year rather than a capital project.
- Non-revenue water — Water a utility produced and paid to treat but never billed anyone for, split into the part that is a revenue problem and the part that is a cost problem.
- Real loss — Water that escaped the distribution system before reaching a customer, valued at what it cost to produce rather than at what it would have sold for.
- Unaccounted-for water (UAW) — The Massachusetts Water Management Act performance metric for distribution loss, and how it differs from the AWWA non-revenue water framework used elsewhere.
Where this goes next
What the index cannot tell you, and what does.
- Reporting Sprint — One recurring report — a state submittal, a council packet, a grant draw — assembled from your own records once and delivered on schedule from then on. Three weeks, flat fee.
- Water Loss Recovery Snapshot — Three weeks, one flat fee. We reconcile your meter reads, billing records and production data and hand you a ranked list of specific accounts and zones with dollars against each.