A recent survey by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) reveals that 29% of 18-hole golf course facilities voluntarily participate in an environmental stewardship program.
Unaccounted-for water usage at water utilities is like throwing money down the drain. Aging water meters often lose accuracy in measuring water usage over time, which adds up to large revenue losses for water utilities. There are several types of water meters commonly used. Selection is based on different flow-measurement methods, the type of end user, the required flow rates, and accuracy requirements. In the US, standards for the manufacturing of water meters have been established by the American Water Works Association. There are three common types of flow measurement: displacement, velocity, and electromagnetic.
Displacement meters are the type of meters most often used in residential and small commercial applications. Displacement meters are commonly referred to as Positive Displacement (PD) meters. Two common methods of PD measuring are Oscillating Piston meters and Nutating Disk meters. Both methods require water to physically displace the moving, measuring element in direct relation to the amount of water that passes through the meter. The piston or disk moves a magnet that drives the register. PD meters are generally very accurate at low- to moderate-flow rates.
Velocity water meters measure the velocity of flow through a meter of a “known internal capacity.” The speed of the flow can be converted into volume of flow for usage. These types of meters include jet meters, turbine meters, propeller meters, and magnetic-flow meters.
Magnetic-flow meters commonly referred to as “mag meters” are technically a velocity-type water meter, except that they use electromagnetic properties to determine the water flow velocity rather than mechanical means, which jet and turbine meters use. Mag meters use the physics principal of Faraday’s law of induction for measurement, and require alternating current or direct current electricity from line or battery to operate the electromagnets.
There are several types of registers for water meters. A standard register normally has a dial similar to a clock with gradations around the perimeter, to indicate water usage measured by the meter, as well as a set of odometer wheels. Modern registers are normally driven by a magnetic coupling between the magnet in the measuring chamber attached to the measuring element, and another attached to the bottom of the register. Gears in the register convert the motion of the measuring element to the proper usage increment, for display on the sweep hand and the odometer.
Many towns and cities are now using automatic meter reading (AMR). There are also some specialized types of registers such as liquid crystal display, instead of mechanical odometers, and registers—to output data or pulses to a variety of recording and controller devices. This new technology also includes products developed, that have developed pulse or encoder registers to produce electronic output for radio transmitters, reading storage devices, and data-logging devices. Pulse meters send a digital or analog electronic pulse to a recording device.
Tyler, TX, Upgrades and Saves
“Water Meters are mechanical, and they have a mechanical chamber that measures and moves in the water meter,” says Steve Zip, Account Executive for Government Solutions, for Johnson Controls. “So, over time, with impurities in the water and ongoing usage of that meter, the meter will degrade and slow down.”
Upgrading these water meters can be costly, inconvenient, and time-consuming, but the end results can be very beneficial for utilities. Nobody knows this better than the City of Tyler, TX. The city hired Johnson Controls to test its existing 31,000 water meters, which had an average age of 10 years. Johnson Controls, headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, provides a wide-range of products and services to optimize energy use. The company found that the city was losing approximately a whooping $2.2 million a year, due to faulty water meters.
The City decided to enter into a performance contract with Johnson Controls to upgrade their water meter system. Performance contracts have been around for decades, but are not typically used in the water industry. “A performance contract is something that has been traditionally done for energy usage for large buildings, cities, counties, school districts, or universities,” Zip says. “It is a contract where we do an audit and calculate savings, or find increases in billable usage.”
The performance contract guaranteed $29 million over a 10-year period from increased billable water usage and energy savings. The contract not only focused on water, but also included savings by upgrading HVAC at city facilities, and upgrading traffic signals. “When we put together a performance contract for a customer, we actually take a risk in the project, so that, if the customer does not achieve the results that were guaranteed to them in the contract, then we will make up the shortfall,” Zip says.
Replacing 31,000 meters would take some cities years to complete, but it only took Tyler eight months to upgrade their meters. According to Gary Morgan, director of utilities and public works for the city, the city subcontracted an outside company to install the new meters. Installation of the new meters began July 2003, and was completed April 2004. The cost of installing the new meters was $15 million. “We funded about $4 million through existing cash reserves, and then sold a bond issue for the rest,” Morgan says.
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Photo: Severn Trent |
| Retrofit installation of automatic meters |
The new meters use an AMR system, which means employees no longer have to walk house-to-house to read the water meters. They simply have to drive by the homes, and the meters will automatically send a radio signal to a computer mounted in the city vehicle. These radio-read meters help save on operational cost, since less employees are needed to read the meters.
“We made a commitment to our employees that no one was going to lose their job as a result of this new technology,” Morgan adds. “They may not be reading meters, but we would find them a comfortable place within the utility. But, when you look at the meter reading staff as a whole, we are saving around $150,000 a year in personnel cost, because we went from five meter readers to three.”
To educate their customers about the water meter upgrade, the city embarked on an intensive publicity campaign six-months prior to the upgrade. “When we realized this was going to be a viable project, we started a media campaign, brought in all the media outlets, and we did a dog-and-pony show regarding the old meters and the new meters and what the advantages were going to be,” Morgan says.
The city also kept the public informed as to when their water meter was going to be upgraded, and that they would experience an increase on their water bill. The average increase for households was $3, and $6 for commercial customers.
City employees provided an onsite demonstration to residents, who would call concerned about their water bill increases. Employees would make sure all fixtures in the house were off, and no water was flowing to the meter. Then they would run a garden hose to a separate test meter that they brought with them, and, side-by-side, they would run water through the home meter and the test meter. “Because we were switching technologies, there were people concerned that maybe the electronic signal that was telling the computer how much water they had used had a problem,” Morgan says. “It was a new technology and they were just unsure as to how it worked. So, we used this test meter to take out to the house to show them that the signal we were getting is accurately recording the amount of water going to the meter, and here’s another meter without a transmitter confirming that amount of water being used is the amount of water being reported.”
The city has seen some amazing savings from the water utility upgrades, as well as the other upgrades throughout the city at other city facilities, and with the updated traffic signals. Revenues and savings after the first two years exceeded the guaranteed amount of $1.9 million under the performance contract. “In the long run this will help us manage the system and our rate structure,” Morgan says. Among the state of Texas, Tyler ranks in the bottom third of the state when it comes to water rates.
Which is quite a feat, according to Morgan. “We are 98% surface water, which is the most expensive water you can produce,” he says. “When you look at our ranking, compared to other cities that survive on surface water, but also have economical well water, we are still able to maintain a reasonable rate for the services we provide.”
Other Cities Upgrading
The city of Lancaster, SC, is the first city in the state to include water meter replacement with a Sensus ride-by AMR system within a performance contract. The city is also working with Johnson Controls, and replaced all 6,000 of their aging meters in 2006. The $3.1 million contract is expected to pay for the program through increased billable water usage, energy savings, and increased operational savings of $4.6 million over the next 15 years.
Jerry Crockett public works department director is looking forward to getting the first years results from the upgrade. “I think we are going to find that we save money on operating costs, save money on the amount of water we purchase—it will save money all around,” he says. And there have been some noticeable improvements already. Crockett says they have been able to phase out two of the three meter readers the city once needed. “It gives our meter readers more time to get out in the field and take care of daily tasks. In the past, it would take anywhere from five to seven days to read the meters—now, we get it done in three days. So, I think it’s a win-win situation all the way around,” he says.
“Another water efficiency benefit is the leak detection capability this system has,” Zip says. “The city can run reports for leaks that were detected on the customer’s side of the meter during the read. This allows the city to proactively notify customers of leaks.”
The Village of Tinley Park, IL wanted to know how much water revenue loss they were experiencing from their 13,750 water meters. The village removed about 300 of their old mechanical meters to test their accuracy. “Our meter accuracy on average was about 92%,” says Jim Nietfeldt, water and sewer superintendent for Tinley Park. “So, we were losing about 8%. Assuming that this sample is an accurate picture of water loss, it is estimated that revenue loss could be more than $400,000 for a 12-month period. With mechanical meters you need to change them out every 20 years, so it was just our time to change the meters out.”
He adds that the village decided to replace their old meter with SmartMeter water meters provided by Severn Trent Services Inc. SmartMeters use fluidic oscillation technology and have no moving parts. They are available as visual read meters, or in a fully-AMR-enabled format using inductive pads, radio communications device, or any form of AMR technology.
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Photo: Greg Morgan, City of Tyler, TX |
| It took the city of Tyler, TX, just eight months to upgrade its meters. |
“We investigated several different options but we liked the idea of how Severn Trent meters worked,” Nietfeldt says. “We had some growing pains with the first meters we installed but Severn Trent has been very proactive with these issues and have adjusted and fixed accordingly.” Nietfeldt adds that the village is using the touch pad meter system and the AMR read meters in some instances. This 4-year project is nearly 75% complete.
The village of Brookfield, IL recently upgraded the city’s 6,000 water meters. The $1.5 million water meter replacement contract is with Midwest Meter, located in Edinburgh, IL, and involves meters manufactured by Badger Meter. “We wanted to modernize and account for all of our water usage,” says Bill Heider, the director of public works for Brookfield.
Brookfield’s meters were 15-18 years old, and the new meters being installed are radio read meters. Heider says he hopes to have data on how the new meters are working within a year. “It’s been really taxing to put them in and an inconvenience on some of the residences, but it’s something that needed to be done,” he says.
Water Utilities Lose Money
Besides unreliable water meters and inefficient energy usage, water utilities can lose revenue through faulty billing errors. One extreme case of this was featured in the New York Times in an article from 2006. According to the article, New York City failed to collect on millions of dollars in overdue water bills, due to its faulty record keeping.
An examination by the New York Times revealed that tens of thousands of property owners have not paid anything for water in two years. The system’s billing errors date back to the 1980s, when New York moved to metered water bills. For much of its history, the city had charged a flat fee for water.
After the fiscal crisis in the 1970s, the entire water system, which is the largest municipal system in the country, was pulled out of the general city budget to protect it from future fiscal shocks. Then came the installations of thousands of water meters in the 1980s, which was followed by allegations of fraud and complaints of inaccurate readings. The billing problems were compounded when New York City’s Department of Finance turned over responsibility for water billing to the Department of Environmental Protection in 1995.
The city’s records show that one family, that owns more than two dozen properties in Brooklyn and Queens, owes more than $1 million in water charges. Another owner, of a 10-unit condominium, stopped paying their water bill years ago, and owes more than $16,000.
The city has not been aggressive about collecting these debts or suspending service, because of their faulty record-keeping system. For instance, meters that were installed were never read, buildings that were demolished continued to be billed, and water use that would have taken a century to run up was billed to one customer in a single year. So, New York city is currently bringing on Booz Allen Hamilton consulting to help upgrade their collection practices.
Can Flat Rate Fees Work?
What, then, is the alternative to having water meters? How about not having them. It seems inconceivable, but it’s not in the city of St. Johns, in Newfoundland, Canada. “Most major cities in Canada are metered, but I don’t think there’s any town or city in Newfoundland that is metered,” says Gerri King manager of environmental initiatives for the city of St. Johns.
The city of St. Johns has 43,000 homes, and a population of approximately 100,000. The city charges the same flat rate for water for every residence. This is beneficial to some, but others—such as single-person residences—would prefer to be metered, says King.
King also helps out with the city’s Water Meter Program. During a preliminary study in 2003, water meters were installed at 25 homes. The study found that residential water usage in the city is slightly below the Canadian average, and is approximately 300 liters per person per day.
According to the US Housing and Urban Development, metered customers use an average of 13%-15%-less water than unmetered customers. A US General Accounting Office report states that metering also assists in managing the overall water system, since it can help to locate leaks in the system, identify high-use customers, and identify areas where use is increasing, which can be helpful when planning expansions.
While King admits this is just a snapshot of water usage in St. Johns, she says the program is now expanding to include 150 metered homes in its test. The metered homes will be outfitted with meters manufactured by Elster Amco. “What surprised us a lot with this initial study is that we were well below the Canadian and US average, for water consumption, so this new study will give us a bit more information.”
Different tactics are also going to be employed to help improve water efficiency. “With the upcoming study, we will tell half the people to carry on with water usage as usual, and the other half we are going to educate them on water usage and see how that effects their water usage. Then, at the end, we will offer a big prize of a new washer and dryer to see if that’s another incentive to see how low they can go,” King says.
But, as the saying goes, “if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it.”
“People are doing pretty well with the flat rate, so to put meters in and spend all that money wouldn’t make much sense,” she says.