Water Case Studies

• Ambler, Pennsylvania
  “One of the things I like about the Neptune approach is that products made back in the early 1980s can be read with current systems.”- Water Superintendent Phil Benigno
• Atlanta, Georgia
  The City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management had been reading meters using a fully manual process, with readers having to lift each pit lid on site. The billing cycle required an entire month to read the meters of roughly 150,000 water service customers in the metropolitan Atlanta area and unincorporated rural areas of Fulton County.
• Auburn, Alabama
  "We needed a meter reading solution for apartment complexes and commercial/industrial customers that would provide a daily meter reading and water usage data when desired."-Manager Tony Segrest
  
• Brandon, Manitoba
  The City of Brandon in Manitoba, Canada, upgraded to Neptune’s ARB Water Revenue System and completed its first ARB reads in less than 10 hours with a read success rate of 99.5%
• Town of Burlington - Massachusetts
  The Town of Burlington’s Department of Public Works services approximately 8,500 water accounts, including 6,800 residential, 880 commercial, 750 "second meter" (irrigation), and 50 municipal customers. According to John G. Sanchez, DPW Superintendent, the water division had already started looking to recapture lost revenue when he joined the department nearly five years ago. "They’d discussed the need for an automatic meter reading system," Sanchez said. "My first year with the town, we produced 1.2 billion gallons of water but billed for only 929 million."
• Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
  "We have a system that permits us to plan for the long term without the concerns of system compatibility."-Watson
  
• Carthage, New York
  "The last thing that sold us on this system is that Neptune builds and owns everything themselves.  If we had trouble, there was one phone call to make.  Thats valuable." -Prievo, System Superintendent
• Centre Wellington, Ontario
  The Township of Centre Wellington, Ontario, Canada, now reads all meters with Neptune’s R900 RF MIU and RoadMAPS mobile data collection system in approximately 4 hours.
• Charleston Water System - Charleston, South Carolina
  In 1879, the Charleston Water Works Company was founded to provide the City of Charleston, South Carolina water from a system of deep artesian wells. By 1903, that supply was inadequate, so the Charleston Light and Water Company was formed, with a reservoir built at Goose Creek and a pumping station in nearby Hanahan. In 1917, what is now Charleston Water System was created when the City bought the water system assets. Today, the utility serves more than 107,000 "Lowcountry" water customers over an area that includes the downtown/Peninsula, North Charleston, Goose Creek, Johns Island, James Island, West Ashley, and Daniel Island.
• Cincinnati, Ohio
  The Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) chose Neptune's ARB® Water Revenue System™ for its reading accuracy, system flexible for long-term value to the city, and the protection of lead free meters in its system.
  
• North Dallas Water Authority - Dallas County, Alabama
  Dallas County, Alabama was created by the state territorial legislature on February 9, 1818, and named in honor of former U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Dallas. Located within the heart of the fertile-soiled Black Belt region in the west-central part of the state, the county encompasses 993 square miles. North of historic Selma, Dallas County is largely rural; spread out around the City of Valley Grande are smaller, unincorporated communities such as Plantersville and Summerfield. Serving this portion of the county is the North Dallas Water Authority (Authority).
• City of Dubuque, Iowa
  Unlike much of the rest of Iowa, the ninth-largest city in the state has varied topography – rolling hills, valleys, and steep bluffs that overlook the Mississippi River. Serving a population of 57,637 with approximately 22,500 water meters (22,386 residential, 114 commercial and industrial), the City of Dubuque Water Department had last undergone a system-wide changeout during the early 1980s. In its aging system, more than 40 percent of its meters were 25 years old or older; the technology to read these meters was nearly as outdated. The City contracted with the local natural gas utility to send out meter readers to walk routes, collecting data with a blend of old pulse generator remotes and touchpads.
• Dieppe, New Brunswick
  According to Jacques LeBlanc, Director of Public Works, "This technology has significantly decreased our customer complaints and also inceased our work efficiency."
• Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania
  Drexel Brook Associates reduces undetected leaks from 3 weeks to less than 24 hours with Neptune's TRICON/E series transmitters, SmartTrol and SmartChart Instrumentation system.
  
• East Orange, NJ Water Commission
  Using the new ARB^® Mobile ^TM System, the East Orange Water Commission has experienced several notable changes.  First, all the reads are captured by a single reader in less than 12 hours, with ample time to gather rare re-reads.  The commission now routinely realizes a reading success rate above 99 percent, instead of estimating half its reads.
• Elkins, West Virginia
  With its conversion to Neptune's ARB® Utility Management Systems ^TM , the City of Elkins Water Distribution System has positioned itself as an efficient, forward-thinking utility, a move that has brought overwhelmingly positive feedback and, most importantly, results.
• City of Enid, Oklahoma
  Located in northwestern Oklahoma, the City of Enid shares the wide open, flat spaces with wheat fields and oil wells. Founded during the famous Land Rush of 1893, the “Queen Wheat City” began an oil boom in 1910. Now also the home of Vance Air Force Base and an overall population of nearly 50,000 people, the City serves 20,500 water service connections – 17,500 residential and 3,000 commercial and industrial (C&I) accounts. Even in the best of times, the water meter system was a challenge to maintain; but especially during the 1990s with an oil bust and drop in population, the resources for regular maintenance were scarce.
• Ex Service Solutions
  "We selected Neptune's EZNet fixed network system and T-10 residential meters with R900 RF meter interface units because of the advanced technology and historic reliability," - April Lowe, Vice President
  
• Falls Church, Virginia
  “Working with Neptune and their distributor was like nothing I’d experienced before,” she said.  “There was no high pressure. It was just ‘here’s what we have to solve your problems, here’s what it will do, and here’s what your outcome will be.’  That impressed me
• Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority
  Comprising a customer base of 46,000 accounts spread across a span of 130 miles, the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority (FKAA) sought a more flexible, more efficient way to capture meter readings from the length of the 1,700-island chain.  The solution to the challenge required a hybrid AMR/AMI system that effectively
  combined handheld, mobile, and fixed network data collection. That key was
  Neptune Technology Group.
• Gibson County, Tennessee
  According to Finance Manager Allyson Horner, in looking at what an AMR system could do, the utility was particularly interested in how it could save time, money, and labor by allowing current employees to multi-task. “When we did the cost analysis on hiring an extra meter reader, and on the return on investment, it was going to be less costly over time [to move to AMR]. We could end up with a six-year payback if we went with the AMR program – versus having an additional employee, when all that they could do was read meters.”
• Greater Cincinnati Water Works-Cincinnati, Ohio
  In 2001, when the Greater Cincinnati Water Works began exploring Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology, its 180 employees, including 24 meter readers, struggled to maintain an 85 percent meter reading success rate (with occasional rates as low as 40 percent in urban areas). Having moved from a pencil-and-paperbased system only six years before, the GCWW was ready to close the technology gap and more efficiently serve its more than one million customers.
• Gulf Shores, Alabama
  Alabama has a limited amount of coastline, but what it has is beautiful – soft, sugarwhite sands, palm trees gently swaying in the warm Gulf breezes, and emerald waters lapping the beaches. The main artery to this semi-tropical paradise runs through the City of Gulf Shores, located on the Gulf of Mexico off the eastern side of Mobile Bay in Baldwin County, Alabama.
• Hamilton, Canada
  Neptune Technology Group (Canada) was selected in 2002 by the City of Hamilton to provide complete turn-key project management services for the supply and installation of the Neptune T-10 water meters.
• City of Hillsboro - Hillsboro, Oregon
  When the town of Hillsboro, Oregon was incorporated in 1876, the residents had to carry water in buckets from local wells and streams. By the time Hillsboro formed its own utilities commission in 1940, the expanding city had switched from a wooden pipe carrying water from Sain Creek to a steel line from the Tualatin River. Today the area continues to grow, due in large part to its location in the heart of the West Coast’s “Silicon Forest.” While this has helped insulate local communities against the effects of the economic recession, the manufacturing of computer chips and solar panels, along with the expanding population, require increasing amounts of water to meet the community’s needs. The City has approximately 2,500 commercial and industrial (C&I) users with the remainder of the City’s 25,000 service accounts consisting of residential accounts.
• Kelowna, Colombie, Britannique
  La ville de Kelowna décide d´ installer des compteurs d´eau et s´engage dans un programme d´é ducation de sa population.
• Key West, Florida
  "Before we were to make a decision, we visited many utilities that had already implemented AMR systems," said Carl Brewster, Director of Information Technology for FKAA.  " By doing this we were able to see several different AMR manufacturers in a working environment."
• Knoxville, Tennessee
  KUB currently has an inititive in place to change out meters with a goal toward improving revenue.  Neptune's TRU/FLO^® and HP PROTECTUS^® meters will be used for this initiative.
• Lethbridge, Alberta
  The City of Lethbridge (Alberta, Canada) selected Neptune’s Canadian Services Group to implement a two-phased metering project that encompassed changing out 7,500 residential water meters (phase I) and the installation of about 2,500 R900^® radio frequency (RF) automatic meter reading (AMR) devices, along with replacing over 1,200 aging Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional (ICI) water meters (phase II).
• Long Beach, California
  Long Beach Water Department conducted a SEER ^® analysis on 42,000 meters identifying that the majority of the unrecorded water was associated with the projected inaccuracy of the large meter.
  
• Middletown, Pennsylvania
  Located eight miles south of Harrisburg along the scenic Susquehanna River, the
  Borough of Middletown, Pennsylvania is the oldest town in Dauphin County, laid
  out thirty years before the founding of the state capital. Providing for Middletown’s
  water and sewerage needs since 1957, the Borough’s Utility Operations and
  Maintenance Department now serves a population of 9,254, with 2,592 residential,
  86 commercial, and 27 industrial accounts. In addition, the utility serves about
  1,700 people in a couple of neighboring communities through the use of two
  bulk meters.
• Miramachi, Nouveau, Brunswick
  En 1999, la Ville de Miramichi, nouvellement fusionnée, a choisi la compagnie Neptune pour installer des compteurs d´eau dans toutes les résidences et dans tous les établissements (commerces, institutions, industries) qui n´en avaient pas.  Le projet incluait la mise en place d´un systéme de gestion et de facturation équitable et efficace.
• Miramichi, New Brunswick
  The City of Miramichi is located in northern New Brunswick, Canada, with a population of approximately 22,000 people. The city formed in 1996 through the amalgamation of Newcastle, Chatham, Douglastown, Loggieville, Nelson Nordin, Canadian Forces Base Chatham, Chatham Parish, Bushville, Chatham Head, and Lower Newcastle.
• Montgomery Waterworks and Sanitary Sewer Board
  "Neptune was chosen because they were the best choice. We are confident the results speak for themselves."- Buddy Morgan, General Manager
  
• Okanagan Valley, British Columbia
  After securing the delivery of safe, high quality water to our customers with the construction of the Powers Creek Water Treatment Plant, the universal water metering project is the final, and most significant, step for effective management of water supply and demand, and to ensure an equitable and financially sustainable operation for the future." -- WID General
  Manager Brian Jamieson, P.Eng
• Opelika, Alabama
  “The increased functionality provided by Neptune’s E-Coder and ARB Water Revenue System...enhance the value of our AMR system. We would highly recommend the use of this new technology...”- Dan Hilyer, General Manager
  
• Palatka, Florida
  Surrounded by live oaks, tall pines, and its famous azaleas, the City of Palatka is the
  seat of Putnam County in northeast Florida. Encompassing nearly 7.5 square miles
  along the St. Johns River, about a half-hour from the beaches on the state’s east
  coast, the city supports a population of 11,000.
• Pasadena, Texas
  Pasadena reduced its meter reading labor costs by more than 80% and improved the efficiency of its system by more than 85%.
  
• Town of Pellham, Ontario
  Billing and customer service functions are reliant on the accuracy of meter reading data. The Town’s issues stemmed from an aging meter population which consisted of a mix of outdated technologies and failing meters. Meter reading errors and process inefficiencies related to old direct read and pulser-based technologies resulted in inaccurate data, an abundance of estimated bills, customer billing disputes, billing adjustments, and large sums of money being written-off.
• Prestonsburg, Kentucky
  "Not only have we observed an increase in field efficiency, we have also experienced a significant reduction in reading errors which have resulted in reduced re-reads, customer complaints, and re-bills all of which previously added cost to our meter reading and billing process." - David Ellis, Superintendent
  
• Raleigh, North Carolina
  The City of Raleigh, North Carolina, already one step ahead of the game, has taken several steps forward in automatic meter reading. The city’s Public Utilities Department made the move to absolute encoder technology with Neptune nearly 20 years ago. A few years later, the utility began laying the groundwork for AMR, long before many of their neighboring cities.
• Richfield, Minnesota
  For more than 23 years, the City of Richfield had read its water meters with personnel walking house to house, using a handheld system with a wire run from the meter to an outside remote. According to Hintgen, not only did nicked and cut wires, sided-over and painted-over remotes cause headaches, but the readers also had to deal with dog bites and being mistaken for trespassers.
• City Of Rosenberg-Rosenberg, Texas
  Located in Fort Bend County just 20 miles southwest of Houston, the City of Rosenberg, Texas is home to a population of nearly 32,000. Developed in the 1870s and 1880s as the junction point of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific’s Victoria Division railroads, Rosenberg and its surrounding Brazos River Valley attracted many from across the country with fertile land for growing cotton and fruit orchards. The city was officially incorporated in 1902, with its public utilities established a few years thereafter. As of September 2010, the water and wastewater department serves 7,076 single residential; 1,291 Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional (ICI); and 233 irrigation accounts.
• Tarrytown, New York
  When you’re a small water utility with a one-man meter reading and maintenance crew, the importance of efficiency can’t be understated. When you’re a small water utility facing over 20 percent in unaccounted-for or Non-Revenue Water due to an outdated meter reading system, old inaccurate meters, and incorrect meter applications, the sense of urgency rises even higher.
• Tifton, Georgia
  The City of Tifton, Georgia sits in the heart of the southern part of the state, about two hours south of Atlanta on I-75. While some might think that life moves at a slower, easier pace there, that’s certainly not the case for Russ Dorman, the Utilities Director for Tift County’s Water and Wastewater Department as well as for the City of Tifton’s Natural Gas Department – or as they’re known together, Tifton Utilities. Having joined the utility in August 2000, Dorman took on his current position in September 2005, around the same time that the water and gas services were consolidated. For several years, he has dealt with the daily challenges of serving 11,800 water customers (about 80 percent of the total in Tift County), 7,500 sewer customers, and 2,400 gas customers.
• Trussville Utilities - Trussville, Alabama
  In 2006, the Trussville Utilities Board was investigating better options for reading its roughly 11,000 water meters and 22,000 gas meters. The six-person crew of full-time meter readers (along with a seventh to perform rereads as needed) was struggling to keep up with a five-days-a-week pace collecting data and inputting it manually. Chief Financial Officer Mike Strength wanted to increase efficiencies using automatic meter reading (AMR) – but only if he could have a system that worked with both the water side and the gas side of his operations.
• Utica, New York
  The Mohawk Valley Water Authority identifying a potential saving of $48,000 from unaccounted-for water using Neptune's SEER ^® (Statistical Evaluation for Enhancement of Revenue) analysis.
  
• Vulcan-Alberta, Canada
  In the summer of 2009 the Town of Vulcan issued a Request for Tender for the replacement of its aging meter population. The town understood the need to replace its aging meter population to regain the revenue it was losing due to the older meters’ inaccuracies. As well, the town was struggling with the many challenges of having to manually read meters – whether reading the outdoor visual remote or walking up to houses to read the meter through the touchpad receptacle. Vulcan knew that significant meter reading efficiencies can be realized by upgrading to a radio frequency automatic meter reading (RF AMR) technology.
• Walton County, Georgia
  Since migrating to Neptune's R900 technology, the Walton County Water and Sewerage Authority has reduced the amount of reading time from a week for each cycle to only a few hours each.  Said Geiger, "One guy can read in about three hours what used to take as long as a week."
• Warren, Ohio
  “When completed, Warren will be able to chart and track time-of-use data on our high volume customers as well as detect leaks, backflow, and tamper occurrences on both commercial and residential service lines...”- Bob Davis, Executive Director
  
• Waterford Township, Michigan
  The Waterford Township, Michigan DPW serves a population of 74,000 people through 25,000 metered connections and 360 miles of water main. Located 40 miles northwest of Detroit, Waterford’s 36 square miles of service district draws its water from 15 wells to satisfy an average daily demand of 8 million gallons per day (M.G.D), peaking to 22 M.G.D. in the summer months.
• West Springfield, Massachusetts
  The ability to accurately track large water users has had a positive impact on West Springfield's water revenues.  Now that West Springfield's ICI customers are paying their fair share for the water they consume, the increase in revenue has allowed West Springfield to continue the residential RF program without increasing water rates.
• Westbank Irrigation District
  Located in the Okanagan Valley in the Province of British Columbia, Canada, the five major water utilities serving the Westside, near Kelowna, are working together to ensure a sustainable, affordable and high quality water resource for future generations. In 2005 the Westbank Irrigation District, Lakeview Irrigation District, District of Peachland, Westbank First Nation and Regional District of Central Okanagan came together to form the Westside Joint Water Committee (WJWC).
• Westbank Irrigation District - Part 2
  Westbank Irrigation District (WID) faced unique challenges related to water use. WID is located in a semi-arid climate where water is a precious resource and requires careful management. To complicate matters, the average WID customer uses twice the amount of water as compared to the average Canadian and three times the amount used by the average European consumer on a daily per capita basis.
• White City Water Improvement District-Sandy, Utah
  Three months of the year, Sandy, Utah is snowy Utah. Located in the shadow of the mountains, this small community is home to the White City Water Improvement District, a utility serving approximately 4,100 connections.