Water thieves are striking across California, except in San Francisco, where the city's Smart Meters have outsmarted would-be water crooks.
While aqua-bandits in other counties have taken to emptying water tanks at schools, illegally tapping fire hydrants, and draining lakes and rivers on public land, Tyrone Jue of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission says there haven't been any reported incidents of water theft in the city as of yet.
According to Jue, the PUC's automated Smart Meters will alert the agency instantly to any kind of anomalous water use in the district, making it easy for crooks to get caught. So there is a way of knowing whether your house guest is taking too long of a shower or if something more nefarious is taking place.
And there's no need to worry about an elaborate heist pilfering from our water source. Hetch Hetchy and the O'Shaughnessy Dam are guarded by the National Park Service, with only one access road to the remote area. In other words, there's no reason to be concerned about theft from the reservoir itself, Jue says. As for the 160 miles of pipeline that crry the water to San Francisco? "The sheer volume of water that's going through there, it's tremendous," says Jue. "So if you were to attempt to puncture a hole into one of those pipelines, the likely scenario is that you would die." JW
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