Houston
What Houston 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
- 30.1% Computed from filed system input and billed consumption.
- Recoverable annually
- $11.1M 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.
What the filing says
Houston serves 1,035,389 retail connections and about 2,230,617 people. Because it reports more than 3,300 connections, it is on an annual water loss audit cycle with TWDB.
What the record shows
30.1% non-revenue water in FY2024, higher than 76% of the 908 Texas systems that filed that year.
- The figure is getting worse across the record.
The reported figure is stable, moving 3.47 points a year against a Texas median of 5.81, so the level is more likely to reflect the system than the paperwork.
Components sum to within 0.00% of reported system input, inside the 0.5% tolerance.
| Year | NRW | Input (MG) | Recoverable | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 30.1% | 115,718 | $11.1M | closed |
| 2023 | 31.1% | 120,904 | $30M | closed |
| 2022 | 26.1% | 114,573 | $33.7M | closed |
| 2021 | 21.2% | 107,040 | $24.2M | closed |
| 2020 | 19.8% | 108,437 | $11.9M | closed |
| 2019 | 22.9% | 112,248 | $21.4M | closed |
| 2018 | 18.7% | 115,959 | $19M | closed |
| 2017 | 20.1% | 107,386 | $6.51M | closed |
| 2016 | 23.8% | 109,753 | $20.9M | closed |
| 2015 | 17.4% | 111,333 | $14.7M | failed |
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 — over 50,000 connections.
| System | Basis for comparison | NRW |
|---|---|---|
| Baytown | HARRIS County | 12.5% |
| Pasadena | HARRIS County | 14.0% |
| Clear Lake City | HARRIS County | 13.4% |
| La Porte | HARRIS County | 23.1% |
| Harris County MUD 165 | HARRIS County | 14.3% |
| Deer Park | HARRIS County | 20.1% |
| Katy | HARRIS County | 8.8% |
| Timber Lane Utility District | HARRIS County | 14.5% |
Where is it going?
This page says how much — roughly $11.1M 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 HoustonSources 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.
- Texas Water Development Board — historical water loss audit data. Retrieved 2026-08-09 from tx-historical-water-loss-audit-data.xlsx. https://www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/data/water-loss-dashboard.asp