Cottonwood Creek MUD 1
What Cottonwood Creek MUD 1 filed with TWDB about the water it produced and the water it billed for, 2015–2020 — and what the filing does and does not let anyone verify.
- Non-revenue water, FY2020
- 13.1% Computed from filed system input and billed consumption.
- system input volume 98.9 sheet 2020, cell AP1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
- billed authorized consumption 85.9 sheet 2020, cell AU1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
- Annual value of the filed loss
- $10,600 Apparent loss at the TX median retail rate of $4.75/kgal, the median of 9493 rates filed by TX utilities themselves (2015–2024); real loss at $0.5/kgal variable cost. Substitute your own rate for an exact figure. Modeled.
- apparent loss 1.11 sheet 2020, cell BL1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
- real loss 10.6 sheet 2020, cell BQ1650
- variable production cost, as filed 0.5 sheet 2020, cell CF1650 · converted from cost per gallon to cost per thousand gallons
- Apparent loss that is a default
- 22.2%
- apparent loss 1.11 sheet 2020, cell BL1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx2020 AP1650agency source
Where this figure comes from
(system input − billed authorized) ÷ system input × 100
Read from data/archive/twdb/2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx (SHA-256 7270fa7072e51e70), our archived copy of the file as it stood on 2026-08-11. That path is committed to the repository and is not served here. The agency publishes its own current copy at https://www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/data/doc/water-loss-data/sources/historical-water-loss-audit-data.xlsx, which may since have been revised.
2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx2020 BL1650agency source
Where this figure comes from
apparent loss × 1,000 × retail price + real loss × 1,000 × variable production cost
Read from data/archive/twdb/2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx (SHA-256 7270fa7072e51e70), our archived copy of the file as it stood on 2026-08-11. That path is committed to the repository and is not served here. The agency publishes its own current copy at https://www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/data/doc/water-loss-data/sources/historical-water-loss-audit-data.xlsx, which may since have been revised.
MeasuredTWDB default
2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx2020 BL1650agency source
Where this figure comes from
defaulted apparent-loss components ÷ total apparent loss × 100
Read from data/archive/twdb/2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx (SHA-256 7270fa7072e51e70), our archived copy of the file as it stood on 2026-08-11. That path is committed to the repository and is not served here. The agency publishes its own current copy at https://www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/data/doc/water-loss-data/sources/historical-water-loss-audit-data.xlsx, which may since have been revised.
What the filing says
Cottonwood Creek MUD 1 serves 1,225 retail connections and about 4,014 people. Because it reports fewer than 3,300 connections, it is on a five-year water loss audit cycle with TWDB.
What the record shows
13.1% non-revenue water in FY2020, higher than 37% of the 1,775 Texas systems that filed that year.
- The figure moved from 2% to 13% between FY2017 and FY2020.
Compliance record
3 violations on EPA's record for this system as of 2026Q2. 3 resolved, and 0 still open.
Nothing on the record is open as of 2026Q2.
Counted as distinct violations, not as rows: EPA's export carries one row per enforcement action taken against a violation, so a row count would multiply this system's record several times over. A violation here is a breach of a reporting, monitoring or contaminant-level rule as reported to EPA — it is not a measurement of the water, and this site has none.
Source: US EPA, Safe Drinking Water Information System, via the ECHO national download, 2026Q2. How we hold it.
Notes on individual filings
TWDB records problems and granted waivers against a filing in its own export. Where we have found something it does not flag, that is stated here too, in full.
- FY2020. The filing states a retail price of $0.50 per thousand gallons. Filed retail prices outside $1 to $40 are not published here, so that price and TWDB's cost of apparent losses computed from it are both omitted.
TWDB derives water losses from system input minus authorized consumption, so these parts sum to the whole on every filing. What a filing can get wrong is which of these numbers were measured.
Where these volumes come from
- System input 98.9 MG sheet 2020, cell AP1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
- Billed authorized 85.9 MG sheet 2020, cell AU1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
- Unbilled authorized 1.24 MG computed here, not read from a cell
- Apparent loss 1.11 MG sheet 2020, cell BL1650 · converted to million gallons from the unit the filing states
- Real loss 10.6 MG sheet 2020, cell BQ1650
From data/archive/twdb/2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx (SHA-256 7270fa7072e51e70), retrieved 2026-08-11 from the published source.
| Year | NRW | Input (MG) | Recoverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 13.1% | 98.9 | $10,600 |
| 2017 | 2.2% | 50.8 | $2,680 |
| 2015 | 6.4% | 38.5 | $1,930 |
Balance closure is inapplicable on every filed year above, so the column that repeated it is not shown. TWDB derives water losses from system input minus authorized consumption, so this decomposition holds by construction. This is neither a pass nor a disclosure gap.
How much of this figure was measured
Apparent loss is three components: customer meter inaccuracy, unauthorized consumption, and data handling error. TWDB supplies a default value for the last two when a utility does not measure them, and records which in its export. Across the published record, unauthorized consumption is a default on 95% of filings, data handling error on 30%. The median filing is 14.4% defaulted, and 1,329 filings are more than half. TWDB's own data-validity score averages 68.4 out of 100 on the 9,315 filings using a default, against 70.0 on the 429 using none — so the score does not tell the two apart.
22.2% of Cottonwood Creek MUD 1's reported apparent loss for FY2020 is a default rather than a measurement. How much of a Texas loss figure is measured sets this out across the whole filed record.
How the loss is valued
Apparent loss is water that reached a customer and was never billed: under-registering meters, data-handling errors, unauthorized use. It is valued here at the retail rate, because water that reached a customer would have sold at that rate. Real loss is valued at variable production cost only, since eliminating a leak saves what it cost to treat and pump the water rather than what it would have sold for. Valuing both at the retail rate is how a loss study produces a number nobody in a finance department believes, and that is the mistake this figure is built to avoid.
This is the value of the loss, not an amount anyone has established is recoverable. How much of it a utility can actually collect depends on which meters are under-registering, which accounts are unbilled, and what a replacement or an audit of those accounts would cost. None of that is in a filed water loss audit, and this page does not claim to know it.
Apparent loss at the TX median retail rate of $4.75/kgal, the median of 9493 rates filed by TX utilities themselves (2015–2024); real loss at $0.5/kgal variable cost. Substitute your own rate for an exact figure.
Comparable systems
In the same county.
| System | Basis for comparison | NRW |
|---|---|---|
| Hurst Creek MUD | TRAVIS County | 11.3% FY2024 |
| Lost Creek MUD | TRAVIS County | 22.8% FY2015 |
| Travis County MUD 14 | TRAVIS County | 6.4% FY2024 |
| Lakeside WCID 2-d | TRAVIS County | 3.1% FY2022 |
| Lakeside WCID 2-c | TRAVIS County | 3.4% FY2021 |
| Austin River Place | TRAVIS County | 5.5% FY2017 |
| Travis County WCID Point Venture | TRAVIS County | 10.3% FY2022 |
| Lakeside MUD 3 | TRAVIS County | 3.3% FY2022 |
Where is it going?
This page values the loss at roughly $10,600 a year. It cannot say which accounts, which zones, or which meters, and it cannot say how much of that value is collectable. Answering either takes your billing history, your meter reads, and your production data reconciled against each other.
Our Water Loss Recovery Snapshot is three weeks, one flat fee, and the deliverable is a ranked list of specific accounts and zones with dollars and a confidence on each.
See what the Snapshot delivers Email us about Cottonwood Creek MUD 1Sources and corrections. Every figure above is either filed by the utility or computed from filed figures, and each one says which. If a number here looks wrong, tell us: the error may be in the filing, in our reading of it, or in something the export does not show. Send a correction. We will check it against the source, correct the page where it is wrong, and say what changed.
- Texas Water Development Board — historical water loss audit data. Retrieved 2026-08-11 from data/archive/twdb/2026-08-11-7270fa7072e5.xlsx. https://www.twdb.texas.gov/conservation/data/doc/water-loss-data/sources/historical-water-loss-audit-data.xlsx