Based on the LCRA Water Use Summary (2016) shows that domestic water contracts - - home owners with lake front lake property - - used only 1.6% of the water pumped out of all the Highland lakes (lake Travis is just one of the Highland lakes).
Each of the water users below used more water than all the lake front residential property homeowners combined on all the Highland lakes:
City of Austin, municipal and parks 30,063 acre feet
(Austin's latest water loss report shows more than 5.8 billion gallons or almost 18,000 acre feet of treated, chlorinated drinking water leaked from city pipes before reaching customers in 2015- - - a 23 percent increase over the previous year, according to annual water loss audits submitted to the Texas Water Development Board).
To put 5.8 billion gallons of lost water into perspective, it is enough chlorinated water to fill Lady Bird Lake nearly two and a half times over.
City of Cedar Park 14,241 acre feet
Travis County WCID No. 17 7,007 acre feet
LCRA Fayette Power Project (LCRA share) 5,440 acre feet
City of Leander 6,361 acre feet
West Travis County Public Utility Agency 5,482 acre feet
City of Pflugerville 4,628 acre feet
Sources:
https://www.lcra.org/water/water-supply-planning/water-use-summary/?wpdmdl=16067
https://www.lcra.org/download/2019_water_use_summary-pdf/?wpdmdl=18506
https://www.kxan.com/investigations/austins-losing-more-water-through-leaks/
https://www.kxan.com/news/austin-water-pipe-leaks-could-fill-lady-bird-lake-twice-in-2015/
More Important News: The City of Lago Vista on Lake Travis switched entirely to more flexible, more durable HDPE poly pipe:
Dave Stewart from the city of Lago Vista: . . . “We switched over to HDPE pipe and never looked back ... There’s a 250-ft piece of 12-in. HDPE pipe that was installed aboveground in 1996 on the side of a cliff near the lake, and we’ve never had a leak or any problems with it (22 years ago).
The HDPE pipe replaced a legacy (PVC) pipe that kept splitting on us again and again.”
https://plasticpipe.org/pdf/leak-free-lago-vista-texas.pdf
HDPE poly pipe is flexible and highly resists freezing weather whereas white PVC pipe becomes glass like at 32 F and below.
Lake pump piping is typically run above rocky ground on hillsides and not buried.
Austin Lake Pumps is the only lake pump specialist company in central Texas offering HDPE pipe as a premium option in all of it's lake pump installations.
Austin Lake Pumps is the only lake pump specialist company in central Texas which owns it's very own HDPE poly pipe transport and pipe uncoiling trailer, over 1000 feet of up to 2 inch HDPE poly pipe can be transported and uncoiled in a single trip.