The City of Carrizo Springs is a small, rural community in southwest Texas’s Dimmit County near the United-States Mexico border, about 80 miles due north of Laredo. Named after the cane grass that once grew around the local springs by the Spanish, the City of Carrizo Springs (Carrizo Springs) was once a primarily agricultural community inexpensively irrigated by artesian wells, according to the Texas State Historical Association.
In late 2023, Carrizo Springs began working with Water Finance Exchange (WFX). Since then, WFX has been assisting the city with its water system’s infrastructure, management, and operations.
A priority project for Carrizo Springs has been addressing its high rate of water loss caused by asbestos concrete, or AC, pipe breakage due to worsening drought conditions and the age of the infrastructure. AC piping was a popular choice in the United States beginning in the 1930s because of its light weight, low coefficient of friction, and resistance to corrosion. However, in 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a complete ban on all asbestos-related products due to its associated health risks. Manufacture and installation of AC pipes came to a stop, but existing AC pipes were not replaced. By some estimates, there remains 600,000 miles of AC water distribution pipe in the United States and Canada.
Unfortunately, Carrizo Springs’s AC pipe breakage is not uncommon. One Utah State University study has shown that pipe break rates, an indicator of the condition of water pipes, are higher for AC pipes than cast iron pipes. In fact, AC pipe breaks are increasing dramatically both in frequency and intensity. And when AC pipe breaks without prior warning, WaterWorld. com reports, “AC pipe often fails catastrophically.”
Carrizo Springs’s pronounced water loss has resulted in high operating costs, accelerated wear and tear on the City’s infrastructure, inefficient use of water, and a great deal of lost revenue. In complement to the city’s focus on replacing AC pipe and addressing water loss, Carrizo Springs would like to enact a more formal public water conservation effort. Up to now, Carrizo Springs’s water conservation efforts have been stymied by a lack of data, resources, including staffing shortages, financing, and access to technical expertise.
As part of its efforts to support disadvantaged communities seeking greater resilience and sustainability, WFX is pleased to offer Carrizo Springs a Community Catalyst Fund grant in the amount of $5,000 to launch the first phase of an artificially intelligent (AI) data analysis dashboard to analyze customer water usage and create customized conservation messaging. The dashboard will also measure and report on customized water conservation efforts.
The data analysis dashboard is expected to help Carrizo Springs identify how much water is used and by what population segment, and to more quickly identify anomalies in water usage. In turn, Carrizo Springs will be able to respond to building conservation messaging that will encourage a more thoughtful use of water. Looking ahead, this grant will unlock the ability for Carrizo Springs to reduce its water loss, increase the community’s perceived value of water, decrease its operational expenses, and maximize revenue opportunities for Carrizo Springs to reinvest into the system as it moves toward a healthier future.
“I’d also like to thank WFX for the grant to support the City of Carrizo Springs’s efforts toward creating a road map for our water conservation plan,” says Azalia Garcia, City Manager.
The AI dashboard project is expected to kick off in winter 2024, with results seen as early as spring 2025.