Missouri Water Utility Tackles Billing Inaccuracies with Cellular Solution

The Utility District covers about 1,300 square miles of land and is one of the largest water utilities by service size in the state of Missouri. The largely rural service area includes residential, cattle and hog operations, and an ethanol plant, spread across five counties. The District does not treat its own drinking water, instead purchasing supply from two sources: Macon Municipal Utilities (MMU), which treats and distributes water from Long Branch Lake; and the Clarence Cannon Wholesale Water Commission, which uses the Mark Twain Lake as its supply.

The decision to move to Cellular AMI can be traced back to the inception of The District. Organized in 1967 as a self-bill district, customers received cards in the mail every month that they would use to manually record and report their water meter data. These cards were then mailed back to the utility and used to create residents’ water bills. The District’s data almost never matched customer-reported data.

“What we found over the years is that customers were not always entirely honest,” said Bender. “We had some residents that would over-record gallons used, which they called ‘banking water;’ while some would report usage way under the actual amount used.”

Installation and Expansion

To halt the under- and over-reporting of water use, the utility first worked with Badger Meter to install Recordall^® M25 Disc Series meters, which use nutating disc technology to accurately measure and record total flow. With the new meters, water loss levels improved and customers were being billed for actual water use.

To further improve the process, The District added a drive-by option, which allowed technicians to remain in their service vehicles while collecting reads.

"The drive-by system worked great, and we were getting good readings in,” Bender said. “I was able to figure [the level of] water loss myself, without [the data] looking like mountains—up and down and all around.”

Four field technicians would collect reads each month with the drive-by system, a heavy strain on a department with only five outside employees.

Midwest Meter, an Authorized Badger Meter Distributor worked with The District to upgrade to cellular AMI. Using the existing cellular network meant that The District would not need to install any infrastructure to support the transmission of data, and technicians would not have to spend days in the field driving around collecting reads.

ORION^® Cellular endpoints were added to each meter in the distribution network, beginning with the outside edges of the system and in traditionally hard-to-service areas due to terrain or other safety concerns. Working inward, the utility will complete installation at the heart of the network in the coming months.

Data Analysis and Findings

Today, the Utility District has installed a little over half of the total ORION Cellular endpoints that will transform the network. Throughout the installation period, the Midwest Meter team was available to assist with training and troubleshooting as needed, ensuring a smooth process for all parties involved. At the completion of the project, flow data will automatically be sent to The District’s BEACON^® SaaS dashboard, making meter reading and billing operations quicker than ever.

Even now, Bender says the impacts have been immediate. Reads come in, and two employees can get readings done in half a day, as opposed to the 2-3 days it used to take. Customer service levels have improved with the new data, too.

Customer Service Improvements

“I look at BEACON every day to view information about our top usages or any leaks,” Bender said. “We pull reports and go through the data and contact customers if we suspect they may have a leak. We contacted them and they are so grateful that we are monitoring this for them because they used to wait until they got a high bill to know about a leak.”

In addition to helping customers save water at their homes, the Utility District is putting the data to work to find water loss in its distribution network using district metering.

Leak Detection

In the winter, The District uses temperature data in BEACON to locate potential freezes and bursts. Finding these leaks early gives his team a head start on repairs before they wind up causing even more water loss.

“We can see where places are running more water through meter than we're recording coming in,” Bender said. “I'm getting all the water recorded going through that line, and then I can see the usage, so whatever's left is my water loss. If the water loss starts creeping up, I know I've got a leak on that line ahead of the meters, because the water isn’t passing through them.”

This data gets reported to The District’s Board of Directors, who has been impressed with the improved accuracy thanks to the upgraded technology. Some members of the Board are even signed up for the EyeOnWater^® app, which allows users to view the same consumption information as the water utility.

“We're looking at real information here, which has saved us and helped us find leaks quicker; where before we didn't know which way to go [to find them]. We knew we had water loss, but we didn't know where to look. Now, with the Badger Meter technology, we can take action.”