Municipal Water
The city meters what it can see. Some litres leave the main and do not return as leaks. The map calls this a blank. The people under it call it Tuesday.
Read in its original CDS context. Explanations, perspectives and unresolved details are preserved as written.
Forge City drinks, washes, cools, and ornaments itself from the same civic body of water. District mains, cooling loops, fountains, and harbor intakes are separately ticketed and often separately loved.
What the balance sheet can see is registered supply. What it cannot see is not always a burst pipe. Old Foundry service lines were blanked from public plans when the tunnels stopped being official. Some of those lines still carry. The city records the difference as unaccounted volume.
Ashfall argues over cooling. Heritage argues over fountains. Harbor Reach argues with salt. The Undercity does not appear on the Water desk as a customer. It appears, if it appears at all, as a rounding error that refuses to round.
Investigation of the unaccounted litre is permitted. Mapping the unofficial valves as a success is how those valves get shut. The Archive holds both the forms and the reasons the forms should not be completed too well.
Quotations
- The city meters what it can see.
- The Undercity does not appear on the Water desk as a customer. It appears as a rounding error that refuses to round.