2. May 2012 by admin.

California State and local officials moved to tighten control of water utilities this week. Both measures could affect Barstow’s water utility, Golden State Water Company.

In Stanton — which has partnered with Barstow and three other cities to share legal costs to fight proposed water rate increases — the city moved to remove Golden State from its city, voting to decline to renew the city’s franchise agreement with the company. That means that the utility will no longer provide service to its residents when the agreement expires in 2014. The council agreed to send a letter to Golden State notifying them of the decision.

In a statement, a Golden State representative said they could not speculate on Stanton’s actions as they had not received formal notice of the decision.

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, a bill by Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, that would tighten regulation of water utilities passed unanimously in the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications committee Tuesday. Huff’s bill was introduced “after many of my constituents expressed their concerns and frustrations with yet another proposed water rate increase by Golden State Water Company,” the senator said in a statement.

The bill would amend sections of the Public Utilities Code to extend certain provisions to water utilities that currently apply only to gas, electric and telephone utilities.

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30. April 2012 by admin.

More and more water utilities are installing “smart” meters to support their water billing software.  The main advantage of the smart meter for a water utility is the ability to read a meter without a meter reading having to visit the premises.  A secondary benefit is a more timely detection of leaks. It can also support more frequent billing, helping with cashflow. 

Beginning in July, the Madison Water Utility in Wisconsin will begin installing "smart meters" in all of its 66,000 customers’ homes at a cost of $14 million.  Currently, water customers use 10 billion gallons each year, some 30 million each day. Madison Water Utility officials have set a goal of reducing water usage by 20 percent by 2020, and they believe the new metering technology is key to making it happen.

"It helps us diagnose leaks and system problems. It helps consumers know the impact of if they take shorter showers or if they buy a new appliance," said Tom Heikkinen, general manager for the Madison Water Utility.

Once the system is in place, customers will begin receiving monthly bills. Currently, customers only get an accounting of their usage every six months, making it hard to tell how changes in water use habits result in changes in cost for consumers.

To help make the change, Madison Water Utility staff, working with contractors, will visit every customer by appointment. In basements, they’ll change the meter head in most cases, but about 10 percent of customers will get an entirely new meter. Once the meter’s connected, workers will run a wire up to the floor joists and install a transmitter the size of a pack of cocktail napkins.

The transmitters will then send a signal every minute of the day. Once an hour, one of those signals will be picked up by a receiver mounted around the city, such as receivers on the tops of water tanks and towers. Each burst of information lasts only a millisecond, using about half a watt of energy each time. That’s about a fourth of what it takes to transmit a cellphone signal, Madison Water Utility officials said.

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30. April 2012 by admin.

In San Francisco the water utility’s smart meters are causing much less of a controversy than the electricity utility (PG&E)’s move into smart metering for use by their water billing software.  Why is that?

Although the meters work on some of the same basic principles as PG&E’s, there are significant differences.  The meters, made by Elster Amco Water Inc., are analog rather than digital. A small device attached to them, made by Aclara, sends the meters’ information to the utility four times per day.

This setup is similar to PG&E’s natural gas SmartMeters, which are just automated transmitters attached to a home’s existing, analog meter. PG&E’s electricity SmartMeters, in contrast, are entirely digital.  PG&E’s meters communicate through a mesh network, in which meters frequently relay information to each other. The water meters communicate directly to 77 data collection units scattered throughout the city, resulting in fewer transmissions per day.

Since 2010, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which provides water service to city residents, has been quietly upgrading its meters with technology similar to that used by PG&E. The new water meters have a transmitter attached that relays their data automatically, over a wireless network - much like PG&E’s. To date, the city has installed 81,000 of the new meters - replacing almost half of the water meters in San Francisco. About 95 people have objected, said Steve Ritchie, the commission’s assistant general manager for water. Of those, the commission has been able to convince 18 that the meters are safe and accurate.

The rest still have their older meters. The commission may create an opt-out plan for them but hasn’t done so yet. "We’ve basically put them in a parking lot," Ritchie said. "We want to talk to each one individually, understand their issues." The commission started the $60 million upgrade project because its existing meters were getting old, and in many cases slowing down. As a result, customers will see an average 2 percent increase in their water bills with the newer, more accurate meters, Ritchie said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/04/28/BUTI1O9T0Q.DTL#ixzz1tOfHpZpd

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28. April 2012 by admin.

If the data being billed is incorrect, every water billing software package will come up with a factually incorrect bill.  That’s what seems to be happening in Las Vegas.

"You must have a leak." It’s the answer a lot of water customers are getting, when they call customer service about exorbitant bills. But the customers often can’t find the leak and, mysteriously, the high usage sometimes goes away on subsequent bills.

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26. April 2012 by admin.

As one ERP site reminds readers this week, it’s easy to think that an upgrade won’t be nearly as complex as a full implementation, but that’s not necessarily true. Upgrades can be nearly as costly or risky as a full-blown deployment of new software.

One significant element often under-budgeted is change management. While changes to the system may seem trivial compared with the widespread changes a full implementation usually brings, there is typically a large number of changes. In addition, there is usually new functionality that presents significant changes from the older version of the software.

Another, frequently overlooked, is that upgrades may require data to be cleansed, migrated and tested prior to go-live. The first thing to keep in mind is that data may have become compromised over the long life of the system, so it is important to revisit the data cleanliness of the system, even if it’s one that was implemented fairly recently. In addition, it is important to have a clear data migration strategy.

Read the entire article for many useful tips.

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25. April 2012 by admin.

Utilities typically disconnect customers who do not pay the bills generated by their billing software.  Water companies sometimes disconnect, and sometimes don’t, depending on the jurisdiction.  In some places water and wastewater is deemed to be a public health issue; disconnecting the water completely is thought to have a wider impact – on public health – rather than limited to the individual customer who does not pay.  So water billing software must have the flexibility to determine if a customer can be disconnected, or whether their supply is to be restricted, for non-payment of the bill.

In Ireland the government has warned that people will be cut off it they fail to pay water charges. Amid continued speculation that households face an €800 bill for new meters, the Prime Minister refused to give details of potential costs when the new charge is introduced in 2014. "These are all matters for discussion about how the system is actually going to work," said Mr Kenny. "If you don’t pay your electricity bill, if you don’t pay your water bill, it’s cut off."

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25. April 2012 by admin.

Ireland announced the creation of a semi-state water company on Tuesday to manage controversial new water charges, one of the conditions of the country’s EU/IMF bailout.  Irish Water, a subsidiary of semi-state gas utility Bord Gais, will collect a new charge due to be introduced by 2013 to cut the government’s annual outlay of 1.2 billion euros ($1.6 billion) on the sector, the environment ministry said.

The proposed system of water meters will not involve households paying an up-front charge, Environment Minister Phil Hogan said. An unconfirmed newspaper report of a 300-euro installation charge sparked criticised by opposition parties and media as excessive.

The government has said it plans to sell parts of Bord Gais as part of a 3 billion euro privatisation target agreed with its international lenders, the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The sale of Bord Gais will not include its gas transmission or distribution system, which will remain in state ownership. Irish Water will take responsibility for water services in mid-2013.

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25. April 2012 by admin.

As Mt Vernon IN has found, if you don’t maintain the infrastructure, it impacts your cash flow from the water billing software. 

Mount Vernon officials broke ground recently on a $7.35 million project to replace aging equipment at the city’s water plant. The new well and intake pipes will replace equipment that dates back to the water plant’s original construction in 1886.

"In the past, Mount Vernon has had to turn away prospective water customers that could have resulted in additional job opportunities," said mayor John Tucker. "That was due to our unreliable water resources and treatment capabilities. So making sustainable and fiscally responsible improvements to our water system’s infrastructure will enable us to increase the water supply to support local economic development."

The project was designed by Johnson Controls, Inc. It will create 20 jobs during construction and is expected to be complete in April 2013. The project will involve removing part of the original water plant and placing a new cast inside the old well shaft. It will also involve placing two intake pipes into the Ohio River.

"This is 130 years old, and it is just failing," said Chuck Gray, Mount Vernon water superintendent. "The pipes are failing. It is just a matter of time before that chamber floods and there is nothing we can do about it. (The well) is just a double-layer brick structure. We’ll take that shaft and use it as the outside form, and we’ll just build a free-standing shaft inside of it."

The repairs and upgrades to the Mount Vernon Water Department began three years ago. The city’s system was leaking water and cash at an alarming rate, and could no longer support any new taps. That resulted in a virtual moratorium on new construction in and around the city. It also resulted in low pressure and a string of boil orders.

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24. April 2012 by admin.

In Chicago the city has been offering free water meters to measure consumption and be billed accordingly, rather than paying a flat rate.  The idea is that the overall conservation effect of metering water saves the city significantly in the long-run. And it more fairly divvies up the cost between heavy users — takers of long showers, diligent sprinklers of lawns and gardens, frequent washers of cars — and those who know to turn off the spigot while brushing our teeth.

A typical four-person family can use as little as an average of 165 gallons a day. That sounds like a lot, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average family of four uses 400 gallons a day.  Differences can be reflective of items such as water-efficient appliances such as a washing machine and dishwasher, sparing use of the outdoor hoses and a general consciousness of water use. This is what water billing software is intended to support.

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23. April 2012 by admin.

The current abundance of water in the United States is unlikely to last, according to a panel of experts at a forum of National Federation of Municipal Analysts held in the Las Vegas. Water rates will be slowly but constantly creeping up, and water utilities across the nation are likely to issue more debt to renew and expand their pipelines, analysts agreed.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which plans to issue a $360 million bond in July to upgrade old facilities and build new ones, is a good example. "We already raised tariffs twice, $2 each year in 2010 and 2011 for residential customers," said William Fox, chief financial officer at the Las Vegas Valley Water District, adding that he does not anticipate further rate hikes until 2014.

Other utilities, which might have not yet done so, will have to follow suit. "With federal and state assistance limited we believe utility managers will likely ask more of their customers, especially in the form of rate adjustments," a recent special report on water scarcity by Standard and Poor’s predicted. In general, well-managed water utilities are expected to tap funds in the coming months. S&P rates 1,270 revenue bonds in the sector and says its sector common rating is A+ with a generally stable outlook.

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