It’s that time of year again! This Fix a Leak Week, here at MetroConnects we are encouraging our customers to be proactive about their water usage. Take a look at your water bills from the past few months. Have you noticed a slow but steady uptick in your usage fees? If so, you just might have a leak!

Some leaks are easy to notice, and usually these are the ones of our nightmares — a busted water heater or a burst pipe, for example. Others might come on more slowly and less noticeably. A slight running of the toilet, perhaps, or maybe a slow but steady drip from the kitchen faucet. These might not seem to be too much of a problem, but all that dripping water comes at a cost for you and the environment. Just ten drops of water per minute from your faucet can add up to more than 500 gallons of wasted water a year. One drip per second? That’s 3,000 gallons a year. Add this together with your neighbor’s drips and drops, and their neighbors drips and drops, and so on, suddenly leaked water adds up to 1 trillion gallons, or the equivalent of the annual use of 11 million homes in the United States.

All of this extra water down the drain strains your municipality’s water sources and wastewater systems. This is especially worrisome in drought years, when less rain means less fresh water filling our municipal systems. Worldwide, 40 percent of the population experiences water shortages, and this number is expected to rise. Less than 3 percent of the world’s water supply is freshwater and suitable for human use. It might feel like our individual choices when it comes to water makes little difference, but every drop counts! Learn more from MetroConnects about what you can do to help with some simple home fixes at www.metroconnects.org/fix-a-leak-week-water.

So, this Fix a Leak Week, which runs March 18 through 24, is a great time to start being proactive with your water conservation efforts. But, as the Environmental Protection Agency reminds us, you can find and fix leaks inside and outside your home to save valuable water and money all year long.