The Heights water board has now approved up to $106,000 for leak detection equipment and the personnel to help.
It's a mystery that may have started about six months ago, and in February and March, when two homes did not have water.
“We were told it was a frozen pipe or something was frozen,” said Gwendalyn Selfridge. “It was not a frozen pipe from our house.”
Selfridge says her home lost water for about five weeks, and her next door neighbor experienced the same for a shorter time, ultimately also needing help.
“We just woke up Saturday morning and we didn't have any water, nothing,” said Mickie Farnes. “And we couldn't figure out what was going on because it wasn't winter weather. It wasn't really cold.”
Heights water workers did some testing at the intersection of Cheyrl Street and Columbine Drive.
Testing showed some chlorine, so they know there's a leak. They just don't know where.
“What it tells us is that a leak, and we assume it's from ours because the city has no piping over there for water,” said Doug Kary, board president. “They have sewer but not water. It's coming from someplace and flowing into that storm sewer.”
Kary says the County Water District of the Billings Heights is losing about 1 million gallons a day.
“Our worst fears is if it does surface and it has undermined a street or something, and somebody's vehicle falls in it,” Kary said. “We’ve got to find this leak.”
The meter was checked where the water leaves the city of Billings, and it was determined there is a leak with the Heights equipment.
“It's not surfacing anywhere,” Kary said. “Of course, the makeup of the Heights is there's a lot of gravel, so if it hits a gravel bed, it’d run right through to the river.”
Both the Selfridges and the Farnes say their pipes did not freeze this past winter, and there's no guarantee it's related to any leak.
“If it was something else, it would be nice to know if they're going to take care of it,” Selfridge said.
“We'd sure like to know what is causing it so we can stop it,” Farnes said.
The board hopes for the same and says this new equipment will hopefully lead to more answers.
