Leaky government: Detroit's water supply wasted by ravaged pipes

  Paul Sancya / APWater from a leaking pipe covers the gymnasium floor at the Caroline Crosman School in Detroit on Oct. 29.By Corey Williams, The Associated PressDETROIT — Torrents of water spew from broken pipes in Detroit's Crosman School, cascading down stairs before pooling on the warped tile of what was once a basketball court.No one knows how long the water has flowed through the moldy bowels of the massive building a few miles north of downtown, but Crosman has been closed since 2007. It's not the only empty structure where city water steadily fills dark basements or runs into the gutter, wasting money and creating safety hazards.As Detroit goes through the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, the city's porous water system illustrates how some of its resources are still draining away even as it struggles to stabilize its finances and provide basic services. Carlos Osorio / APWater spews from a broken pipe on May 16 at Crosman School in Detroit.More than 30,000 buildings stand vacant in neighborhoods hollowed out by Detroit's long population decline, vulnerable to metal scavengers who rip out pipes, leaving the water to flow. The city's water system has no way of tracking the leaks, and the water department doesn't have enough workers to check every structure."The water was running all last winter," said 32-year-old Delonda Kemp as she pointed to a vandalized two-story bungalow across from her home on Detroit's eastside. "You can actually hear it running." She says she reported the leak, but water officials say they have no record of it.The city's five water treatment plants pump more than 600 million gallons of drinking water across Detroit's 139 square miles each day, billing residents for the volume used. But as more families moved away in recent years, often without notifying the utility, crews fell behind on shutting off unpaid accounts."Even after an initial shut-off, residents or squatters often bypass the meter and steal water," said Bill Johnson, a water department spokesman. "In other cases, once a house is vacated, vandals and strippers may steal the piping and meter which causes the water to run undetected."Sometimes, the water can run for years.In the former Douglass Academy on Detroit's east side, six feet of water fills a basement boiler room. In an empty house on Chalmers Street, a pulse of water spews every few seconds from the end of a vandalized pipe. It's been going for more than a year.City officials say they have no idea how much is being lost.It costs about $400 to produce a million gallons of drinking water and $800 for every million gallons that go through treatment facilities. "The water is wasted on the front end, and second is we end up having to treat that water" all over again, said William Wolfson, the department's chief operating and compliance officer.In a city with an estimated $18 billion debt, the department has a debt of about $5.9 billion. The water department has lost more than 400 jobs in the last few years, and one study has proposed cutting half of the 1,700 positions left. While city crews have been demolishing vacant houses in sparsely populated areas, they haven't been able to keep up with the supply. Detroit, which once had 1.8 million people, is now down to about 700,000. Scrappers swarm into houses shortly after the last person moves out. Wiring, copper and metal plumbing are hauled away for illegal sale to unscrupulous recyclers. Even a decorative outdoor fountain in downtown's popular Hart Plaza was turned off earlier this year after its copper pipes were stolen. "They'll steal anything that's worth stealing," said 65-year-old Shirley Young, who lives next door to a stripped house on the east side. Beyond the cost of the water, the flooding causes safety problems. In the winter of 2009, the body of a homeless man was found frozen in the flooded elevator shaft of a vacant warehouse. He had apparently fallen in after a drug overdose. During the winter, water-covered streets become sheets of ice. During the hot months, the flooded basements attract vermin and breed insects. Modern technology can help track leaks but that's an expense that Detroit, with a network of 100-year-old cast iron pipes, can't afford. "The infrastructure is old. It's extremely expensive to replace pipes and extremely disruptive," said David Arison, vice president of Global Business Relations for Miya, an Israel-based firm that designs efficient systems for urban areas. The easiest answer may be eliminating the abandoned buildings. Mayor-elect Mike Duggan, who takes over in January, has pledged a stepped-up demolition effort using additional federal funds. Over the past six months, water department crews and contractors have whittled the backlog of reported leaks from about 350 to 33, said Samuel Smalley, assistant director of Detroit's Wastewater Operations Group. But that may not be as impressive as it sounds. "Those are the ones that we know about," he said.Related: Baltimore's leaky infrastructure seeping into city's budget© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

'Major ice storm' threatens power supply in South, Midwest; temperatures dip

 Two Harbors, Minn., was buried under three feet of snow, but residents called the weather conditions "perfect". Boyd Huppert of NBC station KARE of Minneapolis reports.By Henry Austin and M. Alex Johnson, NBC NewsGovernors in at least five states declared emergencies Thursday in anticipation of an arctic blast that threatens 32 million people in the South and the Midwest with snow, ice and bone-chilling temperatures plummeting by as much as 50 degrees.An ice storm stretching from Texas through Arkansas, the boot heel of Missouri and parts of Tennessee and Kentucky could weigh down power lines and snap tree branches with a half-inch or more of ice, forecasters warned."Just prepare, plan and hunker down once this starts later tonight," said Tom Niziol, a winter weather expert for The Weather Channel.Kevin Roth, a lead meteorologist at the network, said the region faced a "good 12 to 14 hours of freezing rain and ice" as cold air mass pushing south from Canada collides with moisture streaming up from the Gulf of Mexico.Much of the country will be in a deep freeze over the next few days as two winter storms dump snow showers and a wintry mix across several states. The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore reports from Dallas. Emergencies were declared in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas in anticipation of what's coming, allow state agencies to streamline their disaster responses and speed up acquisition of resources for recovery.In Oklahoma, the declaration also activates a law that prohibits price-gouging on necessities. "We have seen a few cases of price gouging and fraudulent claims in the past, so consumers need to be alert," Attorney General Scott Pruitt said in a statement.The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent staff to the state without even being asked because of the state's history of ice storms.Some parts of the country will get sustained icing upwards of 12 to 18 hours in duration, which could mean widespread power failures. Weather Channel meteorologist Dylan Dreyer reports from Fort Smith, Ark. "Based on our previous disasters in Oklahoma, especially ice storms, we know we need to pre-stage to support the state whenever they need a request for generators or power," Robert Ross, a FEMA disaster official, told NBC station KJRH of Tulsa.Farther north and west, people faced extreme cold and snow. Temperatures could dip to minus-20 or worse in the northern midsection of the country, forecasters said. Snow totals could also approach 3 feet in northeastern Minnesota, where the weather has contributed to hundreds of traffic collisions around the state.Residents and shopkeepers busily shoveled sidewalks front of their buildings in Bemidji, N.D., which has gotten 18 inches of snow since Tuesday."I can't say I'm terribly thrilled about it. It's a lot," Nikki Miller told NBC station KVLY of Fargo. "But I guess it's a white Christmas."Colorado homeless shelters went on emergency status, with expected to remain below 20 through next week and as much as 30 inches of snow was expected in the mountains.Denver police Officer Rob Parks was hiking the city's streets looking for homeless people he could direct to the shelters, particularly those with mental health issues or drug or alcohol addictions."Whatever [it] is that's going on with them that day, if they're in crisis and they're caught out, those are the ones that just can't seem to help themselves. and so we're certainly looking for them," Parks told NBC station KUSA of Denver.But Parks said he feared some weren't going to survive despite his best efforts."If people aren't seeking shelter over the next couple of days, there's a strong chance that we may have one or two or more that actually freeze on the street," he said.Parts of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, meanwhile, were also expecting near 3 feet of snow — pushing some Rocky Mountain ski resorts past 100 inches for the season.The wintry mess will push into the Middle Atlantic and the Northeast on Sunday, likely leaving a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain to complicate things before the Monday morning rush in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia."The I-81 corridor in Virginia through Maryland could see significant impacts," said Niziol of The Weather Channel.Related:This story was originally published on Thu Dec 5, 2013 6:08 AM EST