It's an essential element vital to all living things, but billions of gallons of water are lost every year in Austin most of it in water main breaks.

A 24-inch break in a water line a few years old at west 6th and Lamar on Friday, January 10, left utilities officials explaining why it took a week to get to the repair after the first calls came in from the public.

"It doesn't necessarily take a week to do that," says George Calhoun with Austin Water Utilities.  "It's a matter of calls that come in and the availability of that crew to get to that," says Calhoun.

Calhoun says the city puts water main breaks and leaks into three different categories.  A category 1 break which gets immediate attention has to cause property damage, or be a threat to public health or safety.  A priority 2 is a leak which needs to be fixed within 48-hours which could become critical, and a category 3 is a leak that does need to be repaired but can take longer than 48-hours before crews get to it. 

George Calhoun says crews average 3-7 days on most priority 3 calls.

Austin Water Utilities says between January 1 of this year and January 9, crews made 21-emergency repairs and 34-priority 3 repairs due to bad, damaged or old pipes.

City workers admit there is room for improvement when it comes to streamlining the repair process and Calhoun says his department is currently working on it.

"We want to streamline that time down. We want to cut those times down considerably and get to the leaks a lot quicker," Calhoun says.

No numbers of how many gallons of water were wasted at the break at 6th & Lamar nor was there a dollar amount available. However, the latest numbers the city has are from 2004 to 2005 showing that close to 7-billion gallons in water was lost in mainly water main breaks and leaks, a cost of nearly $9 million.  That's partially due to old lines, theft and faulty meters.