The Rancho California Water District will be applying for a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation grant to implement satellite-based leak detection.The RCWD board voted 7-0 Dec. 7 to approve a resolution in support of the application. The grant would be for $91,000, and the water district would be providing an equal match which will be fulfilled through staff time expenses.The satellite-based leak detection would utilize Synthetic Aperture Radar data collected by NASA satellites along with complex algorithms and machine learning to detect and geographically locate underground pipeline leaks, including those with no visible evidence above ground. Once the technology is implemented, RCWD staff expects to find and repair more leaks than would be possible using traditional leak detection methods,
