The misty rain slowly collided with the office windows of Herbert Henry Oxidane, P.I., CWT.  As it coalesced and streamed down, the water detective’s phone rang once…twice…three times.  He answered, “Detective H2O here. The best water treater this side of the Ohio, solving water problems drop by drop. Whatcha got?"

“Mr. Oxidane, this is Frank from Food Is Good, Inc.  You were down in our neighborhood about two years ago, working with the crew on a boiler foaming situation.  Remember?”

“Oh, yes, Frank.  I remember.  Good coffee.  We finally fingered the cause of the foaming to process contamination hitching a ride back with the condensate from the Processing Department.  You run a tight ship,” said Detective H2O.

“Yes, that’s us.  Well, we’ve got another scene going on over here, see.  It’s the cooling tower this time.  Something’s fishy because we can’t get the conductivity up to where it should be.  We’ve put the squeeze on the blowdown valve.  Closed it completely.  We even eyed the drain, and there is no water coming out of that blowdown line.  Zilch.  None.  It’s got us all feeling jingle brained down here, Mr. Oxidane.  Can you help?”

“I was looking for a good reason to blow out of here, Frank.  I’ll jump start my heap and be sliding your way faster than two shakes.  Get that coffee brewing.”  With that, the water detective shimmied into his overcoat, donned his hat, grabbed his test kit, and headed out the door.

* * *

“Mr. Oxidane, hop in, and I’ll take you to the culprit,” said Frank.

Detective H2O eyed the pickup truck and climbed in.  “I’ve considered getting one of these, but my old jalopy in the parking lot would never forgive me.  You might call me loyal,“ Detective H2O said.

“Well, I can give you a jump start later if you need it,” Frank chuckled.  “This up here is the cooling tower system.  It’s a big one, alright.  Multiple cells with a common, in-ground sump.  Provides cooling water to all the surrounding buildings at Food is Good, Inc.  The conductivity is still way below our control ranges.  My fellas have recalibrated both the lab equipment and cooling tower conductivity controller three times each.  They’re thorough that way.”

As they stopped beside the water system, Detective H2O got out and walked the perimeter of the cooling towers.  He observed the blowdown line.  There was an airgap between the blowdown piping and the drain, showing zero flow.  The manual blowdown valve was also closed completely.  Next, he looked for signs of excessive splashing or drift, but found none.  He checked the overflow line and found no flow.  The water detective grabbed a water sample, and the conductivity was indeed well below the control range.

“Well, Frank, all the obvious culprits check out fine.  Your conductivity is low.  The blowdown is tight as a clam.  I don’t see any signs of bypassing the fill and splashing outside the basin nor do I see excessive drift.  The overflow line is bone dry.  You are losing water somewhere, though.  Let’s do the math to see how big this mysterious loss is.”

Asking a few questions about the system size and operating conditions, Detective H2O pulled out his yellow notepad and brick of a calculator and began crunching numbers.  He soon looked up and said, “If my calculations are correct, and they usually are, you would normally be blowing down around 12 gallons per minute.  At your current cycles, you are actually blowing down around 33 gallons per minute!”

“Wow!  That’s nearly 3 times the rate required,” observed Frank.

“Yes.  When you consider that a typical garden hose flows at around 12-13 gallons per minute, a 33 gallon per minute leak should stand out like a sore thumb.  Either your basin has sprung a leak underground or you’re losing water out in the process in one of these buildings somewhere.  Short of shutting down and draining the basins, let’s start by following the cooling tower lines into the facilities it serves.  We’ll need to check every takeoff line, valve, etc.”

“That sounds like a great idea, Detective.  We’re at the height of production right now, so shutting down the cooling tower isn’t an option,” said Frank.

“And from what you tell me, this low conductivity is a very recent and sudden phenomenon.  Unless something catastrophic happened with the basin, I suspect water is being lost on the process side somewhere, anyway,” said Detective H2O.

“Let’s start with this building right here,” said Frank as he led the way.

Frank and the Detective spent the morning tracing down cooling water lines and talking to plant personnel looking for the source of the water loss.  The Detective sketched a process flow diagram as he went along. 

They covered two buildings thoroughly, but when it came to the third and last building, Frank said, “Ok, here’s a sticking point.  Due to the proprietary nature of the production in this building, Building 6, we’re not allowed in here.  The facility manager is quite the stickler for protocol.”

“Hmmm, we’ve eliminated the other buildings rather thoroughly.  It is most likely in this building.  Can we at least talk to the boss?” asked Detective H2O.

“Sure thing,” replied Frank.  “I doubt we’ll get anywhere with her, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Despite Detective H2O’s best attempts to convince the facility manager to let him poke around looking for the water loss, she wouldn’t budge an inch.  The best they achieved was a promise to have her guys take a look themselves.  Calling her on the horn later got the response that nothing was found.

“Alrighty then,” said Frank.  “What now?”

“Ok, desperate times call for desperate measures.  It’s time to get this canary to sing one way or another.  Let’s make this leak identify itself.  Let’s put red dye in the cooling tower water, if that’s okay with you and your wastewater operations.  We’ll let the facility managers know, especially the Building 6 manager.  Then we’ll observe what drains we can for the dye,” said Detective H2O.

“I like it,” said Frank.

* * *

Putting the plan into action immediately, Frank, his team, and Detective H2O spent the afternoon looking for signs of the red dye.  While none was found, strangely, the conductivity in the cooling tower system began to climb in the early evening. 

The next morning, Detective H2O’s phone rang three times again.  “Detective H2O here. The best water treater this side of the Ohio, solving water problems drop by drop. Whatcha got?"

“Mr. Oxidane, this is Frank.  I just wanted you to know that the cooling tower conductivity held at setpoint all night long.  It looks like we found the culprit.”

“Yes,” said Detective H2O.  “It appears we did.  Funny how making the water loss undeniable can do that.  While we didn’t catch the perpetrator red handed, I’m sure someone is red faced.”

* * *

In the underbelly and penthouses of the metropolis of Waterville, where the boilers percolate and cooling towers fog, there is one man who works tirelessly to end corrosion, stop scale, fight lowlife microbes, and conserve water.  That man is Detective H2O.  Best water treater this side of the Ohio.  Solving water problems drop by drop.