New sensor technology could cut waste and costs with Huntingburg water

Rather than choosing between two $600,000 options for a water meter detection system, the City of Huntingburg approved exploring another option that could save money and ease the workload on water department employees.

Water Superintendent Gary Meyerholtz came to the council last week with a request to try something new after spending the last 16 years battling a meter system that has not withstood being used in water. He told the council the water department began installing these meters 16 years ago and had only 45 percent of them installed.

“It is failing faster than we can put it back together,” Meyerholtz said.

These meters can be scanned with a handheld device and their readings then downloaded to a computer for billing. The system has been problematic from the beginning.

He gave the council the example of two meters recently installed that took less than a month to start showing erroneous readings.

“I’ve got a reader who reads the meters, and then another guy who goes out and rereads the meters,” Meyerholtz said.

On top of them not being able to withstand being in the water, now the batteries are beginning to fail, forcing the water department to spend more time checking and replacing them. “Right now we are fighting dying batteries, a failing system and a system that’s not been completed,” Meyerholtz said.

He offered a couple options for the council to consider. He said the entire system could be replaced over the next five years with a different system from the same vendor for about $631,000. He had also received information from another company that would have cost a bit less but had annual fees for software and other deliverables.

As a third option, Meyerholtz introduced Mike Eppler, a representative of Evansville-based Kitera Inc. Kitera designs and implements systems for monitoring manufacturing processes with remote sensors.

Eppler said they could complete a consultative study to implement a system from scratch for the water department utilizing the company’s technology already in use in other applications.

The type of sensors on the meters would monitor the system in real-time and send the information wirelessly to the city offices through the catch points on the city’s water towers. This would eliminate the need for a water department employee to go out and read the city’s water meters and the system would also be able to report problems like a break, saving the ratepayer money for lost water.

Additionally, Eppler said the company could create an app for ratepayers to monitor their usage in real-time.

Among the attractive perks offered with the system was a 20-year battery life with a no-cost replacement policy up to ten years; thereafter the cost would be prorated. Also, the system did not come with any annual costs to the city.

Eppler said the study would cost $23,500 and if the city chose to provide the system, the study cost would be reimbursed on the back end of the implementation cost.

The council unanimously agreed to have the study completed. It will take three to six weeks to complete.

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One Comment

  1. Always a better mousetrap than the one before, and there’s always a “study” involved. In this case, what’s in the $23,500 “study” – what’s involved with doing the “study” etc? Is it an in-office computer study, or a field research study – is it a software and/or hardware study – what exactly are they going to “study”? If the current system is not even half complete, what will the study reveal about that in terms of how this needs to be done and how much extra it will cost? Did the city do any checking on this company with other utility customers and how similar studies and projects have worked, etc? Missing information to be sure – hope this was simply left out of the story and not overlooked by the city – but KEY information.

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