Every year water pipes freeze and cause a large amount of damage to the surrounding roads and houses. For years, one Wisconsin Community has had a unique way of preventing that from happening.

The City of Rice Lake, Wisconsin is telling residents to keep the water running. It seems like a waste of water and money for utilities, but that's not exactly the case.

"In the event that a customer doesn't follow the run water request and it ends up freezing and we're not notified or they don't know about it, it could end up doing a lot of damage. More than likely it's going to freeze up inside the home and you're going to have property damage," said Scott Reimer, the General Manager of Rice Lake Utilities.

Leaving the faucet open is voluntary for residents. City officials say any additional usage costs will be picked up by the city.

Rice Lake Mayor Dan Fitzgerald said, "We need to make the decision that the loss of our water that we have or when the pipes freeze we run into seven and ten and fifteen thousand dollars to tear up these pipes and replace these pipes. Then it becomes inconvenience to the tax payers at that point if the water froze up and we have to do something different with the street and into their homes."

Rice Lake Resident Charlene Komoto agrees with the policy.

"I've seen them dig up in the streets when the pipes are frozen and it does look like a big mess so it's kind of hard to keep the water running but they reimburse us for that. I always worry about the pipes freezing," she said.

Public Utilities officials say their plan of letting water run wastes about four million gallons of water a year. In this case, city officials say it's deciding which is the lesser of two evils.

"We offset it by saying, which is worse, the cost of the city having to tear up all these streets or the minute amount of water we are losing," the Mayor said.

Letting the Water run is a tactic the City uses only in the extreme cold weather. The Mayor says he has yet to receive one complaint from residents about the policy.