Texas · PWS TX1420001 · LA SALLE County

Cotulla

What Cotulla filed with TWDB about the water it produced and the water it billed for, 2015–2024 — and what the filing does and does not let anyone verify.

Non-revenue water, FY2024
37.9%
Computed from filed system input and billed consumption.
Recoverable annually
$177,071
As computed in the filed audit itself: apparent loss valued at this utility's own reported retail price of water, real loss at its own reported variable production cost. Not our estimate.
Balance check
closed
The filed water balance closes.

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What the filing says

Cotulla serves 1,830 retail connections and about 3,661 people. Because it reports fewer than 3,300 connections, it is on a five-year water loss audit cycle with TWDB.

What the record shows

37.9% non-revenue water in FY2024, higher than 85% of the 908 Texas systems that filed that year.

The reported figure is not stable enough to act on. It has moved an average of 10.3 points a year, against a Texas median of 5.79, including 5.9% to 29.1% between FY2016 and FY2018. A distribution system's real losses do not change that fast — pipe does not deteriorate or repair itself in a single year. A series that moves like this is describing how the water is being measured and recorded, not how much of it is being lost, and which year is closer to true cannot be settled from this filing.
Water balance, FY2024 · 486.7 MG system input
Billed 302.2 MG Unbilled authorized 0.96 MG Apparent loss 20.8 MG Real loss 162.8 MG

Components sum to within 0.00% of reported system input, inside the 0.5% tolerance.

Filed history, 2015–2024
Year NRW Input (MG) Recoverable Balance
2024 37.9% 486.7 $177,071 closed
2023 23.8% 435 $308,596 closed
2022 36.1% 447.5 $378,933 closed
2021 29.8% 464.8 $397,551 closed
2019 21.5% 425.3 $211,045 closed
2018 29.1% 437 $249,834 closed
2016 5.9% 489.1 $105,091 closed
2015 5.2% 418.2 $50,865 closed

How to read the recoverable figure

Apparent loss is water that reached a customer and was never billed — under-registering meters, data-handling errors, unauthorized use. It is valued at the retail rate, because recovering it is revenue, and it is recoverable inside a budget year without capital work. Real loss is valued at variable production cost only: eliminating a leak saves what it cost to treat and pump the water, not what it would have sold for. Adding those two at the same rate is how a loss study produces a number nobody in a finance department believes.

As computed in the filed audit itself: apparent loss valued at this utility's own reported retail price of water, real loss at its own reported variable production cost. Not our estimate.

Comparable systems

Same county, or the same size band — 1,000–3,300 connections.

SystemBasis for comparisonNRW
Harris County MUD 861,000–3,300 connections 8.7%
Blackland Water Supply Corp1,000–3,300 connections 23.0%
Sunko Water Supply Corp1,000–3,300 connections 14.6%
Jim Hogg County WCID 21,000–3,300 connections 33.2%
Cut And Shoot1,000–3,300 connections 7.7%
Chatfield Water Supply Corp1,000–3,300 connections 16.2%
Chandler1,000–3,300 connections 6.3%
Harris County MUD 1631,000–3,300 connections 9.6%

Where is it going?

This page says how much — roughly $177,071 a year. It cannot say which accounts, which zones, or which meters. That takes your billing history, your meter reads, and your production data reconciled against each other.

Our Water Loss Recovery Snapshot is three weeks, one flat fee, and the deliverable is a ranked list of specific accounts and zones with dollars and a confidence on each.

See what the Snapshot delivers Email us about Cotulla

Sources and corrections. Every figure above is either filed by the utility or computed from filed figures, and each one says which. If a number here is wrong, it is either wrong in the filing or wrong in our reading of it — tell us which and we will correct the page and say what changed.