Water Efficiency May 2013

MAY 2013
QUALITY | SCADA | IRRIGATION | AMI
SCADA: AN
EVOLVING SYSTEM
WATER QUALITY
REGULATIONS AND
TECHNOLOGIES
WATER
EFFICIENCY
THE JOURNAL FOR WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
AN ONGOING CHALLENGE:
Meeting WATER
CONSUMPTION Needs
WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET
May 2013, Volume 8, Number 3
features
10
18
10
18
An Evolving System
New Regulations and

New Technologies
Getting the most power from your SCADA

By Ed Ritchie
24
COVER STORY
Irrigation Demand Management

Municipalities throughout North America face
an ongoing challenge: meeting demand without
resorting to developing new resources.
By Carol Brzozowski
Cover photo: iStock.com/tfoxfoto
Water utilities and municipalities are taking a

closer look atand even changingthe way
they monitor, test, and treat drinking water.
By Dan Rafter
48
Ratepayersor Customers?
Data on residential water usage allows utilities
to transform service and tame consumption.
By David Engle
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FORESTER
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Editor's Comments Elizabeth Cutright
We Are Not Making

New Water
ISTOCK.COM/SERRNOVIK
We must find a way to

manage with the resources
already available to us.
IN A RECENT BLOG post (Water . . . Right Here
All Along, http://bit.ly/YQdnmg ), I asked, what if
we already had enough water to meet our needs?
The answer to that question, according to
panelists who participated in a discussion hosted
by New York Academy of Sciences in February, is
that we do have enough waterwe just dont have
enough conservation ( http://yhoo.it/105iWju ).
The panelists, including Brian Richter (director of global freshwater strategies for The Nature
Conservancy), Peter Gleick (co-founder of the
nonprofit, Pacific Institute), Adam Freed (director of the Nature Conservancys
Global Security Water Program),
and Brooke Barton (Water Program
Leader for Ceres) came together to
discuss water resource management
and water conservation strategies.
Overall, the participants reiterated the notion that smarter, more
efficient water use makes sense both
economically and environmentally.
As Richter explained, its always
cheaper to use the water we have
rather than attempting to create new sources via
large-scale infrastructure projects (like reservoirs,
pipelines, and desalination plants).
I related it to my personal banking account,
Richter told LiveScience ( http://bit.ly/YP6Q8g).
If I am over-drafting my personal bank account,
it is going to do me no good to open up another
account. You cant build your way out of the problem. We are not making any new water.
In order for conservation to work, the panelists agreed that a consortium of advocates must be
tapped, including the agricultural community and
the corporate world. And while irrigation has continued to increase in efficiency, a study conducted
by Ceres last year ( www.livescience.com/27610future-fresh-water.html ) revealed many large
companies were far behind the curve with regard to
water conservation.
The price of water must also be recalculated to
reflect its true cost, said Richter, who also warned,
We do have to be careful not to raise the price out
of the [range of] affordability of the poor.
Maybe most importantly, Gleick believes we
8 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET
must wean ourselves from a tendency to use that

past as a barometer for the future.
Our water systems were designed for yesterdays climate, and managed for yesterdays climate,
he explained in an interview with LiveScience
( www.livescience.com ). But climate change may
also impose unexpected problems that our past
experience isnt sufficient to deal with.
Regardless of the resources youre responsible
for, more often than not, it all comes down to asset
management: What do you have; what can you
cobble together; how can you make it all work in
the most efficient, and cost-effective,
manner?
The answer, according to The
Water Resources Utility of the
Future: A Blueprint for Action,
(jointly compiled and released by the
National Association of Clean Water
Agencies the Water Environment
Research Foundation, and the Water
Environment Federation) involves a
new future for water utilities. As the
report states, the Utility of the Future
(UOTF) will no longer operate in a silo, but instead
will transform itself into a manager of valuable
resources, a partner in local economic development,
and a member of the watershed community seeking
to deliver maximum environmental benefits at the
least cost to society ( http://bit.ly/WQXif7 ).
Although the report is focused on wastewater
utilities, theres plenty of content applicable to potable water resource management, especially the call
to action for a sustainable future that minimizes
waste, maximizes resources, protects the ratepayer,
improves the community, and embraces innovation
in an unprecedented manner.
This transformation includes a strong commitment to water reuse, as well as extracting and finding
commercial uses for nutrients and other constituents,
capturing waste heat and latent energy in biosolids
and liquid streams, generating renewable energy
using its land and other horizontal assets.
If this all sounds like a tall order, it is, but
the benefits of successful implementation of these
UOTF strategies are far reaching and, in many ways,
incalculable. WE
EDITORIAL
ADVISORY
BOARD
RYAN J. ALSOP
Director of Government & Public Affairs
Long Beach Water Department
Long Beach, CA
SCOTT N. DUFF, MCIP RPP

Manager, Program Coordination
Ministry of Agriculture, Food and
Rural Affairs
Ontario, Canada
CHRIS EARLEY
Principal
Greening Urban, LLC
Richmond, VA
LEONARD FLECKENSTEIN
Senior Program Specialist
Santa Barbara County Water Agency
Santa Barbara, CA
LUIS S. GENEROSO
Water Resources Manager
City of San Diego Water Department
San Diego, CA
NEIL S. GRIGG
Professor of Civil Engineering
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO
GARY KLEIN
Affiliated International Management LLC.
Newport Beach, CA
GEORGE KUNKEL JR., P.E.

Water Efficiency Program Manager
Philadelphia Water Department
Philadelphia, PA
JEFFREY J. MOSHER
Executive Director
National Water Research Institute
Fountain Valley, CA
JIM PINGATORE
Water Conservation Planner
Valparaiso City Utilities
Valparaiso, IN
DANIEL RANSOM
Water Conservation Program Manager
Tucson Water
Tucson, AZ
PETER P. ROGERS
Professor of City Planning
Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental
Engineering, Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
DAN STRUB
Conservation Program Coordinator
Water Conservation Program
City of Austin, TX
BRIAN VINCHESI
President
Irrigation Consulting Inc.
Pepperell, MA
DAVID ZOLDOSKE, EDD

Director
Center for Irrigation Technology
California State UniversityFresno
Fresno, CA
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An Evolving System
Getting the most power from your SCADA
By Ed Ritchie
elcome to the new era

of SCADA, and goodbye to the days of basic
supervisory control and
data acquisition. Todays
SCADA systems are reaching into most
every aspect of a utilitys water distribution and treatment operations, for a
true enterprise-wide methodology. And
most every stakeholder in the enterprise
can benefit if the utility is ready to harness his or her SCADA systems power.
All it takes is the time to investigate,
and weve looked into some systems that
demonstrate the many powerful features
that can benefit your utility. So read on.
A powerful SCADA system has
great tools for boosting operational
efficiencies, detecting leaks (small and
large), and, in the office, taming the

dreaded paperwork monster, says Ray
Imhof, operations manager for the water
district at the Borough of Ridgway, PA.
Ridgways Ovation expert distributed
control system, from Emerson Process
Management, Bloomington MN, tracks
their water through four phases: starting
with the dam its drawn from, through a
treatment plant, onto a holding reservoir,
and, finally, as its distributed to residential and commercial customers. Actually,
counting the waters return voyage as
wastewater, we can add two more post
use stages of treatment and release.
We monitor and control the entire
distribution system from my office,
explains Imhof. We have about 80 different points out in our system, and that
includes water storage tanks and pump

stations. We can set schedules for pump
stations and valve controls and can actually open and close different valves with
the SCADA system, but one of the biggest advantages in distribution is the fact
that we are tracking flow and pressure, so
we can upgrade our distribution line.
As with most water districts using
older infrastructures, leaks are a problem, but the SCADA system has helped.
Since we put this online, we have found
many small leaks in the distribution system that wouldve never been discovered
until they became major problems, says
Imhof. We track the flow on our main,
and if we see an elevated flow over 24
hours, we know theres something going
on that we need to investigate further
to avoid a break. If we do get a break in
our big, 12-inch main, the alarm system
warns us before it causes serious damage
underground.
The system also helps avoid damage to pumps because Imhof monitors
electrical supply voltages in pump buildings, and even the interior temperature
of those buildings gets tracked. The extensive monitoring

and controls are all part of an Ovation platform. We started
using Ovation back in 2004, recalls Imhof, and last year
we did a complete evergreen, which is Emersons term for a
complete overhaul of the system. We have all new machines,
new servers, and software updates. We added a third server
that is primarily used as a historian. The historian remembers
everything; so at any given moment, we can pull data from
any point that the historian is monitoring and get a complete
description of the activities.
Considering that there are 80 points to monitor on a 24/7
basis, the historians memory could be getting quite a workout.
So whats the advantage to logging all that data? One advantage is in the preparation of Department of Environmental
Protection reports, says Imhof. Their record requirements
are extensive, and in the past we had to take readings off of
the screens and transfer them to another computer. But the
historian can generate whatever report we design, and we can
see specific time frames. We also use it at the wastewater treatment plant where we control the entire plants operation, and
the historian monitors the flow and effluent, and whats been
released into the river and other data.
Those benefits have saved the district plenty of time,
money, and hardware, adds Imhof, but dont forget reductions in field maintenance. Every day we used to have to go
to each tank and visually check the tank with the site gauges,
says Imhof, and we had to visit all of the pump stations daily.
So weve reduced the time involved significantly, and also

greatly improved our accountable water. It doesnt require less
manpower, because you still need good old-fashioned brains
and people, but it makes the job 100% easier. It has saved us
about 30% overall. For just myself, I save two hours every day
because I dont have to travel to field sites anymore.
Less time in the field can leave more time to focus on
improving plant operations and finding opportunities for
boosting energy efficiency, according to Douglas Johnson, VP,
Global Supply Chain at Emerson Process Management. If
you have a good, robust SCADA system that covers the entire
municipal authority and treatment plant, you can do advanced
modeling for analysis of processes and pumping and save a
Remote Systems
Monitoring and controlling The City of Olympias water
utility presents some unique challenges for Eric Woods,
a Remote Systems Technician for the utility based in the
Puget Sound area of Washington. The districts topography
ranges from sea level along the shoreline of Puget Sound to
more than 360 feet above sea level in one area and above
460 feet at another.
Land elevation within neighborhoods varies appreciably
and to address this issue, the service area is divided into pressure zones that rely on storage tanks and booster pumps.
I've seen an interesting evolution of technology in my
situation, says Woods. Things are a lot easier now because
we monitor installations remotely and can control operations such as changing set points, adjusting pumps or turning them on and off, and adjusting levels of storage. Thats
been ongoing, but we didn't have that capability about five
or six years ago.
Woods keeps tabs on water and wastewater system of
35 sewer sites, 18 pump stations, two reservoirs, and 24
step systems for sewer sites. For one of his more difficult
remote monitoring tasks, he chose an all-in-one radio, IP-67
rated outdoor/weather-proof data acquisition and control
device called the WiSI, from Rugid Computer, Olympia.
For the City of Olympia, the WiSI was a logical choice,
says Cheryl Melchior, director of Visual Design & Engineering at Rugid. The WiSI measures and reports the fluid
level of an in-ground tank containing a chemical additive
for the city sewage system. Previously a person had to go
to the tank every few days and remove the lid to manually
measure the level. Not only was it a manual process, but
also the chemical being measured is somewhat caustic. Furthermore, the location of the underground tank relative to
the closest remote site that is tied into the citys telemetry
system proved challenging due to topography and obstacles. The other options for automating the measurement of
the tank level were to either put in a completely new RTU,
enclosure, radio, et cetera; or to run wire great lengths.
Because the solar-powered WiSI is completely selfcontainedsolar panel, energy storage, radio, general I/O,
IP-67 packageit did not require any other supporting
hardware. At about the size of a soda can, its relative obscurity was a good option due to the site being in a non-secure
location close to a city street and sidewalk.
lot of energy, says Johnson. In

addition, there are other benefits
such as reducing maintenance
requirements, and, by looking
at pump diagnostics information to spot pumps that might
be having maintenance issues,
you can roll of this data into a
model and study how to reduce energy and even avoid having
a catastrophic pump failure.
Johnson credits advances in remote telemetry unit (RTU)
technology for much of the progress, and notes that though
they began as data recorders, they now have navigational
capabilities that allow for modeling pumping requirements
and energy efficiency.
Lets say we have three pumps, says Johnson. How
do I run them with the least energy? Do I run one pump at
100% and idle the other two, or run all three prompts at 30%?
If youre just looking at energy requirements, its a relatively
easy model to build. And you can add other things such as
constraints if a pump has certain problems. So you can limit
its operations, and the maintenance plan can specify these
restrictions and other important information. Then, theres
the option for contingency plans, so if you build a model to
compensate for certain failures and run all is data points, you
can have the system make the adjustments automatically or
control it manually. You can expand beyond that with complex
hydraulic models that involve a lot of different situations.
The ability to monitor hardware data and use sophisticated modeling tools has boosted the power and value of
SCADA systems, but theres more to come from harnessing
the data from AMI systems, says Doug McCall, director of
marketing at Sensus, Raleigh, NC.
We look at it as more than a metering solution, says
McCall. Theres so much data coming in and water authorities
are asking how to utilize it. Ultimately the solution is software
that lays the knowledge right in the authoritys laps, so all the
data becomes something usable. With the SCADA data, you
can spot the inefficiencies in the overall network and opportunities to improve. So we work with customer service people,
the billing people, and the metering aspect, but theres a whole
scope of the utilities operations such as asset management, the
entire financial department beyond just billing. For example,
you could be asking what is the electricity bill of a certain location and how does it correlate with the water usage. And then
theres the whole issue of most efficient methods for maintaining water quality such as chlorine levels and maximizing their
usage.
One example that operators would welcome is in leak
detection software that analyzes the data and looks at zones to
identify the highest potential for leaks. So if you have a main
thats one hundred years old, you want to know its getting
the highest priority, explains McCall. And you also have the
option to model pump relocation strategies. In that case, the
capacity of the pumps could be analyzed for maximizing the
allocation of those resources.
With the range of data spanning subjects as diverse as
billing to chlorine levels, one thing is certain, the information
At any given moment, we can pull data from

any point that the historian is monitoring and
get a complete description of the activities.
needs to be clear, simple, and free from clutter. Its from these
demands that software designers have developed the concept
of the graphical user interface (GUI), and its not unusual to
hear the GUI of a SCADA system being compared to a common itemthe automobile dashboard. Its a user-friendly
concept that works well, according to Nathan Slider, solutions
specialist, SCADA & MES, at Schneider Electric, Palatine IL.
You have a SCADA system with a dashboard to run
your plant just like in your car, says Slider. And typically we
see people with a campus map of a facility or multiple facilities showing their water and wastewater plants, plus pump
stations, storage tanks, and so on. A SCADA system can tie
in more than one facility and ideally you could optimize your
entire system.
In past projects, Slider has seen that the process of tying
facilities together in a group works well with a master SCADA
system that overlays all of the elements in the group. Moreover, it can add a layer of security if those plants are self-contained. If you have a master SCADA system that overlays the
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MAY 2013 WATER EFFICIENCY 13
PHOTOS: RUGID COMPUTERS
plants you can have one plant be the redundancy of the other,
explains Slider. Weve had floods in the South and hurricane
Sandy in the North recently, but those utilities that had controls working across a countywide network were still able to
control parts of their systems that were partially underwater.
A master system can be an advantageous (and cost saving)
feature for allowing plants to run 24/7 without the need for
operators on staff for three shifts and weekends because the
plant is under the master systems umbrella. Another cost saving benefit is the ability to automate demand response strategies and optimize distributed generation assets.
If you have onsite generation and you want to use it for
demand response that would be an opportunity for one system
that can manage everything, says Slider. Lets say you have a
certain number of hours that you can run a generator for peak
shaving and your system can manage and watch those hours.
If youre using too much power and in danger of exceeding
your demand limits you can click to the screen that shows
your power monitoring and see how many hours are available
on the allowable generator.
Such equipment operations can be tied to an asset management system to keep track of on-time hours and alert staff
when its time for a minor or
major rebuild. That alert can
trigger a work order and the
asset management system
can specify the tools and
hours needed to complete
the job. These procedures can
be implemented in steps as
part of a master plan, notes
Mark Leinmiller, wastewater
segment manager, solution
specialist for SCADA at
Schneider.
Often during an expansion of the plant a utility considers a master plan because
updates are needed anyways
and having it to fall back on
allows for more flexibility in the system. Another benefit to
that is having the staff trained to operate one master system
and not have to go through cross training, he says.
Hiring, training, and retaining staff is a major issue for
water utilities. As far back as 2005 industry research revealed
that the average age of water utility workers was 45 years old,
and the typical retirement age was 56. Well, here we are eight
years later, and those operators arent getting any younger. But
according to Terry Biederman, global industry manager, Water
and Wastewater Industry, GE Intelligent Platforms, Fairfield,
CT, a powerful SCADA system can maximize operator performance and mitigate the skills gap at a water utility. All the
better if the system is designed to work with a utilitys existing
SCADA hardware and infrastructure.
But how does the software help operators with tasks such
as maintaining or repairing equipment? Lets say a pump
is not performing correctly, explains Biederman. Proficy
generates an event from its workflow function and notifies the
Above: Lift station control

panel with system indicator, lights, HOA switches, and
RTU operator interface
Left: Lift station control panel
with variable frequency drives
operator, and gives him the whole series of time-based events.

But the key is not only to notify them that the event is happening. Now as part of that solution it finds standard operating
procedures or best practices for how the operator should solve
the problem. Just to take it one step further, where I came from
[director of public works for the Township of Waterford, MI],
we had it automatically trigger a work order in our computer
maintenance management system and auto-populate several
fields, and later recaptured the material and recorded the time
and materials needed to solve the problem.
The approach applies to process parameters, but its also
possible to prevent problems by using data to predict the
need for an early intervention of a process. Lets say that the
softwares Historian function is collecting information from a
process such as dissolved oxygen, and you want to optimize it,
says Biederman. You have all this historical data that shows
blower efficiency, speed, dissolved oxygen levels, and temperature; and those parameters and that historical information
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WiSI all-in-one radio, data acquisition and control, self-powered device
combined with the current information

can be used to model the specific conditions for the optimum dissolved oxygen.
Thats very powerful for the utility,
because they can say that this system can
check the deviation before it becomes a
problem, and notify the operator that,
based on historical data, theres going to
be a problem with dissolved oxygen and
it needs to be corrected. And you can
actually rank the most probable causes
for the deviation, so the operator can
go through them and do something like
check the blower speed and power.
Tracking labor and material costs
for repairs, plus operations data, makes
it easy to share the information with
other departments, such as IT and
accounting. All told, Proficy and similar
SCADA-related products provide powerful benefits. But, are utilities tapping
their potential?
Im going to say the industry gets
a C+, in terms of implementing the
full potential of what SCADA can do,
says Biederman. But part of this whole
equation is changing the culture of
your organization. You just cant throw
for related articles:

www.waterefficiency.net/SCADA
technology at your staff. We had to actually change our culture, so our operators
became consumers of this information,
rather than look at it as equipment to
monitor and control the staff. Instead,
it was products that help their efforts to
do their jobs better. They need tools to
make their jobs more efficient, because,
in the end, its all about our customers,
and we cant have failures.
With the sharing of data and information with departments outside of the
operators arenasuch as IT, accounting,
and engineeringthe need for security
has become a major concern throughout
the industry. But, according to Timothy
Hicks, president, FlowWorks, Seattle,
WA, sharing data shouldnt include
sharing control. Everybodys concerned
about security for obvious reasons, and
because SCADA does control it has to be
incredibly secure, says Hicks. But, we
are suggesting that a system that gives
access to the data without control is
the answer. So by using a Web platform
thats highly secured, the worst thing
that could happen to a system like FlowWorks is that the website could be taken
down. However, there is no credit card
data and no control happening, so, if
somebody could break in, all theyd see
is a bunch of squiggly lines and no ability to associate them with any particular
system.
The removal of controls could be
critically important as the security risks

rise with the use of tablets and smartphones. Once you have an iPhone app,
your data has gone somewhere, and
there could be a way to eventually find a
security hole, says Hicks. So you dont
want to link SCADA systems to other
products, because once somebody gets
in to just one area, they have access to
all of it.
But if its secured, is it still possible
to use all of that valuable data? We offer
a calculation engine that allows users
to do advanced math on real-time data,
and data imaging tools, a rainfall contour mapping tool, and full integration
with GIS, says Hicks. Utilities can also
store photos and videos of past problems
at a site, and they can open a work order
and look at the history to confirm a
repair location.
With SCADA systems providing
more information, more control, and a
more enterprise-wide design philosophy,
utilities that adopt these systems can
realize great benefits in efficiency and
performance throughout their operations. But it does require effort, notes
Biederman.
Its constantly evolving, and people
who do not look at SCADA as an evolving system are not optimizing their
investment, says Biederman. I hear it
all time from directors of utilities that
have put a SCADA system in but havent
done anything with it since the installation. Its a living, breathing thing that
gives them all that feedback, and with
more information and intelligence there
are more opportunities to improve the
plants operations.
Though weve just scratched the surface as far as the many SCADA products
and services available, the benefits are
great and bode well for utilities that are,
indeed, ready to improve the operations.
Moreover, all of the companies that
contributed here are more than ready to
make it easy to take that first step. WE
Writer Ed Ritchie specializes in energy,
transportation, and communication
technologies.
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PHOTOS: BREMERTON WATER TREATMENT
New Regulations and

New Technologies
Water utilities and municipalities are taking a
closer look atand even changingthe way they
monitor, test, and treat drinking water.
By Dan Rafter
fficials with the City of

Bremerton, WA, knew that
they had to make changes to
the way their utility treated the
3.3 billion gallons of drinking
water it supplies each year to its 55,000
customers. EPA was in the process of
enacting tougher regulations on utilities
such as Bremertons that rely on surface
water for their supply of drinking water.
Bremerton taps surface water from
the nearby Union River Reservoir and
groundwater from a series of production wells located across the Bremerton
area for its water supply. EPAs new rules
require surface water systems to increase
the frequency of their water monitoring
and to use two distinct disinfectants to
treat their drinking water. The goal of the
new rule is to increase the detection of the
microscopic organism Cryptosporidium,
which can cause diarrhea. Bremertons

utility has tested for this organism since
1994 and has never discovered it in its
drinking water. But that didnt mean that
the utility didnt have to boost its treatment and monitoring efforts to meet
EPAs new rule.
Like most utilities, Bremerton has
long used chlorine as a way to treat its
drinking water. Chlorine, though, is ineffective against Cryptosporidium. To meet
EPAs rules, Bremerton officials approved
the construction of a new ultraviolet (UV)
treatment facility, one that would use UV
light to eliminate not only Cryptosporidium, but also a wide range of other
contaminants in the citys supply of drinking water. The new facility went online in
2011. And so far, says Kathleen Cahall,
Water Resources Manager for the City of
Bremerton, the facility has been operating
exactly as it was advertised when officials

with HDR Engineering brought the idea
to them.
This option made the most sense for
us, says Cahall. It made the most sense
both economically, and in terms of effectiveness. The more we found out about
ultraviolet, the more we realized how
effective it was. It treats for many other
things. It was pretty amazing to learn what
it can do.
Bremerton, of course, is far from
the only municipality taking a closer
look at and changing the way it monitors, tests, and treats its drinking water.
Increased regulation, as well as equally
increased pressure from citizens, is forcing
municipalities to turn to new techniques
to assure that the drinking water they
provide is free from contaminants.
These techniques include everything
from ultraviolet rays to self-contained
modular water-treatment systems that
arrive at utilities pre-designed and prepiped. Municipalities can also rely on
specially designed filters designed to catch
and remove arsenic and other contaminants from drinking water before they
reach customers.
And the good news? Manufacturers
working in the water treatment and testing industry say that municipal officials
are more willing to try new techniques.
And thats something that bodes well for
the future of this business.
We have different technologies
that we can provide municipalities that
are interested in taking the steps necessary to improve their water quality, says
Eric Peterson, director of Municipal
and Industrial Sales with Mooresville,
NC-based Amiad USA. And were
seeing more municipalities looking for
better ways to treat their water. That has
certainly helped us. We have grown from
a very small company into a prosperous
mid-sized one today. Were a company
that can expect more than $100 million in
sales during a given year now. And a lot of
that is because you are seeing a greater on
focus on water quality.
MORE AWARENESS
Much of the growth experienced by
Amiad and other water treatment companies can be traced to the increased
focus many municipalities are placing
on testing and treating their drinking
water. This focus is a direct result of more

stringent rules from EPA or from state
and local governments. But much of it
can also be traced to increased media
attention received by municipalities when
testing uncovers contaminants and other
particles in drinking water.
No municipality wants to be on the
receiving end of the bad publicity that
comes with drinking water problems. To
avoid this, many are boosting the dollars
that they are spending on both testing and
monitoring. And when municipalities
take closer looks at their drinking water
supply, its not unusual for them to find
something that needs to be addressed.
There is no doubt that more regulations are in place today than 15 years ago,
says Chad Miller, applications engineer
with Buford, GA-based AdEdge Technologies, a firm that offers a range of water
treatment technologies to municipalities.
People, communities, decision-makers
are all testing more often, too. When you
do testing, you often find what you are
testing for.
Miller points to a community in
Georgia served by several new private

wells that in the past were not required to
be tested for traces of arsenic. Eventually, a
government agency studied the new wells,
taking water samples from them, and, to
the surprise of many, they found arsenic.
Believe it or not, that happens a lot,
says Miller. Once you start looking for
something, youre often going to find it.
Once you find it, people call up and ask,
What do we do about this?
Leo Zappa, a director in the municipal water market for Pittsburgh, PA-based
Calgon Carbon Corporationwhich
supplies carbon and UV technology
designed to remove contaminants from
drinking watersays that improvements in technology are also fueling the
increased focus on testing, monitoring,
and treating. Water-testing equipment
once was able to detect compounds in
water on a parts-per-million basis. That
has changed. Today, equipment can scan
for particles on a parts-per-billion and
parts-per-trillion basis, Zappa says. And if
thats not high-tech enough, the latest testing equipment can uncover particles on a
parts-per-quadrillion basis, Zappa says.

The problem is, no one is yet sure if
this is actually a good thing.
The increasing precision and lowering of the detection threshold of testing
equipment is driving increased public
awareness, research efforts and regulatory
efforts, says Zappa. This is because we
can now find compounds in our water
that we never knew were there before.
This may be a mixed blessing for our
society. Its not clear that any of these compounds, at the minute levels detected, in
fact pose any sort of health risk to humans
or animals.
Just the detection, though, of these
minute compounds is enough to set
municipalities into action. The reason?
They dont want to suffer the negative
pressand perhaps legal actionthat
comes with delivering contaminated
water, even if no one knows whether the
contaminants are actually hurtful.
Knowing these compounds are
present in our water can drive a frenzy of
activity, which can generate a whole host
of new business opportunities for health
Adsorption Ion Exchange

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5152 Belle Wood Court | Buford, Georgia 30518

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researchers, environmental regulators, testing laboratories, conwebsite, running news stories about service improvements, infrasulting engineers and process equipment suppliers, says Zappa.
structure issues, and conservation measures its customers can
However, these business opportunities come at the price
take. The utility also maintains a strong presence on Facebook,
of driving up operating costs at water utilities and, by extension,
Twitter, and LinkedIn. It runs a section on its site devoted to
drive up water bills for customers. The key is getting to the botkids, and it even operates its own YouTube channel with videos
tom of whether or not these compounds, at the levels at which
explaining how costly a leaky toilet can be and outlining the
they are present in our water supply, in fact pose a health risk.
health of the systems infrastructure.
Like Zappa, Peachie Maher, market segment manager for
These efforts are important steps in maintaining a strong
Amiad, says that municipalities have always been focused on
relationship between utilities and customers, Maher says.
providing clean, safe drinking water to their residents. What has
Its not necessarily a glamorous world, the world of water
changed, though, is both the technology to detect organisms
delivery. People are not necessarily interested in it until they hear
in the water supply and the media attention that results when
that something has been found in their drinking water, says
anything unusual is found in drinking water.
Maher. But still, utilities have to be constantly communicating
Before, people didnt pay that much attention to their
with their customers. They need to develop that relationship so
drinking water, says Maher. It came out of the faucet, and that
that when something does happen, they can continue the comwas it. People didnt think about how it came out of that faucet.
munication that they have already developed.
There has certainly been a reaction on
the part of municipalities because of the
increased public scrutiny. Everyone today
is trying to get ahead of things. They
want to be more proactive.
Its easy to find examples today of
community residents and media outlets
responding aggressively to water-quality issues.
The Berkshire Eagle newspaper
in Massachusetts in late January, for
instance, wrote a story about the director
of a private water lab being arraigned in
Berkshire Superior Court on 30 charges
of allegedly falsifying water-testing
samples sent to EPA. Earlier in January, the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio
reported on Portage County, OH, citizens
who were testing their own drinking
Increased regulation, as well as equally increased pressure from citizens, is forcing municipalities to
water because they worried that gas and
turn to new techniques to assure that the drinking water they provide is free from contaminants.
oil drilling might have contaminated it.
The residents were looking for elevated
chloride levels. Then there was a story by KCRG-TV9 in Iowa
PROACTIVE
about officials at a Dubuque-area elementary school shutting
In Bremerton, officials acted proactively, working with HDR
off their buildings water supply after a weekly water test found
Engineering to develop a treatment plan that would result in
traces of coliform bacteria.
high-quality drinking water. The new UV-based water treatment
Maher says that municipalities need to quickly address any
plant is a big part of this plan. Ultraviolet has been proven over
water supply concerns. The quicker they act, she says, the more
more than 50 years to be an effective agent against drinking
trust theyll engender among residents.
water contaminants. Thats because UV light penetrates the cell
In some cases, whats found in the water sounds scarier
walls of microorganisms, disrupting these organisms DNA, and
than what it actually is, says Maher. Its a difficult thing; it can
preventing them from reproducing. If the cell cant reproduce, it
be so technical. It takes good communication to make the public then becomes harmless and is unable to cause illness in humans.
understand what is a concern and what is not a concern. You
Bremerton, though, isnt relying solely on UV light to treat
have to know what that organism is, and what its impact can be.
its drinking water. The citys utility will still use chlorine. This
And you have to share that information as quickly as possible
is partly because EPA requires the utility to use two types of
with your community.
disinfectant. But it is also because chlorine has proven effective
Maher has worked with many utilities during her career. She over the years in Bremerton, Cahall says. The utility has made
points to DC Water, the utility serving the District of Columbia,
a significant change when it comes to the type of chlorine it is
as one that does a particularly good job of educating and inform- using, though. It has moved from using gas chlorine, to relying
ing its citizens, whether about water conservation, the cost of
on liquid sodium hypochlorite.
leaky faucets, or water safety.
The liquid form of chlorine is mainly a benefit to the utilDC Water communicates with its customers through its
itys workers; it is safer for them. But this form of chlorine also
reduces the risk of a systemwide chlorine leak. The ultraviolet

treatment plant has since opening in 2011 won two major awards.
The city received a Drinking Water State Revolving Fund Award
from EPA for the plant shortly after it went into operation. And in
early 2013, the American Council of Engineering Companies of
Washington awarded both the city and HDR Engineering a silver
Engineering Excellence Award for the facility.
It was very nice to be recognized for such a well-done project, says Cahall. We are proud of the way we worked with our
consulting firm and the way we sought creative funding to pay for
the project. It felt good to be recognized for that. We have limited
staffing here, so we have to be creative. It was nice that someone
outside of the city recognized the steps we took.
Like many municipalities, Bremerton faces tight budgets
today. This meant that the city had to be creative in paying for its
new water treatment plant. Fortunately, city officials were able to
qualify for a $6 million grant from the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009, an act that most people know as the
federal stimulus.
Armed with these dollars, the city was able to plan and commission the plant without tapping into the city budget.
We were ready when the stimulus money came, says Cahall.
We didnt want to let this opportunity pass us by.
Bremerton isnt the only municipality taking innovative steps
to monitor and treat its drinking water. In central Kansas, the Butler County Rural Water District #5, working with Arch Chemicals,
has taken its own unique steps to bring high-quality water to its
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customers. The
water district, which
covers a service
area of about 40
www.waterefficiency.net/water-quality-monitoring
miles and serves
more than 1,300
customers, had
long struggled with
inconsistent levels of chlorine residual in portions of its 450-mile
system. To solve this problem, and to make sure it was delivering
water that was a clean as possible to its customers, Butler County
in 2011 installed a new booster chlorination station. This station
uses dry calcium hypochlorite from Arch Chemicals as its sanitizing agent. The results have been positive. The chlorine residuals
throughout the system have been consistent since the installation.
This has improved the water utilitys efficiency.
The district purchases its water from the nearby city of
Eldorado at a rate of about 150 million gallons a year, according
to Arch Chemicals. The water district then rechlorinates the water
before sending it into its distribution system. The district does this
to maintain the 1-milligram-per-liter minimum chlorine residual
that is required throughout the distribution system. Unfortunately, by the time the purchased water reached the districts westend water pump, where it was treated, its chlorine residual level
usually had fallen to about 1- to 1.2-milligrams-per-liter. The districted boosted the residual level with sodium hypochlorite to get
it back to the required levels, but this required high dosage levels.
And Butler County utility officials struggled with this method to
maintain a consistent chlorine residual throughout their system.
The new booster station, located at the eastern edge of the
district, has solved this problem. Butler County is relying on a
Constant Chlor Plus MC4-150 dry calcium hypochlorite feeding
system to keep chlorine residuals on a consistent level today. The
county originally installed the feeder on a trial basis to see how
well it worked. Terry Brown, maintenance supervisor for the
water district, says that it didnt take long for district officials to
realize that the feeder was the right fit.
After using it every day for two-and-a-half months, we
decided to make this installation permanent, says Brown in a
written statement.
The feeding system delivers a consistent dose of liquid
chlorine throughout the system, and can supply as much as 150
pounds of available chlorine a day on a sustained basis, according
to Arch Chemicals. Another example of innovative water treatment can be found in Greenwood, AR.
The towns water treatment plant, built in 1964, relies on a
lake that is less than 10-feet deep for its source of drinking water.
This can prove challenging.
We often get a lot of organics, and this had brought about
high trihalomethanes [THMs] in our finished water when we
pre-chlorinated, says Mack Cochran, Greenwood water superintendent, as part of a case study published by Siemens Water
Technologies.
In fact, THMs in the system were running as high as 175
milligrams-per-liter. The elevated organic content in the drinking water also produced an odd odor and taste, something that
residents certainly noticed. The solution? Town officials approved
the installation of a Wallace & Tiernan Series 85-250 Chlorine
Dioxide System from Siemens.

Chlorine dioxide is a powerful enough disinfectant and
oxidizing agent to seriously disrupt the formation of THM. The
application also helps treatment plants control the taste and odor
in the drinking water they treat. The results have been impressive; according to Siemens, the plant has twice won Best-Tasting
Water competitions sponsored by the Arkansas Water Works
and Water Environment Association.
FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS
These success stories, though, dont always happen. Many
municipalities still struggle when it comes to testing, monitoring and treating their supply of drinking water. And often, tight
budgets are to blame.
Miller from AdEdge Technologies has seen this.
AdEdge is busy today. But the company could be even busier,
he says, if municipalities were receiving all the grant money for
which they are applying.
Not as many municipalities and utilities are receiving they
money for treatment and detection projects that they are applying for, says Miller. And when that happens, projects get put on
hold for a period of time. Today we have a number of municipalities that have committed to treatment projects. But we are
seeing many of these projects get pushed back month by month,
by month. While municipalities want to treat their water more
effectively to meet regulations, a lot of times they are not getting
the money they need to do this.
The financial challenges can be even more daunting for

smaller municipalities that are operating under especially tight
budgets, Milller says.
For many of these smaller entities, there simply isnt any
extra money to spend on increased testing or treatment even on
something as important as drinking water.
With many small communities the rate structure has not
been in place to pay for the capital costs of a treatment project
upfront, says Miller. So these communities are very dependent
on state funding to assist with those capital purchases. When state
budgets are cut, then these communities have a difficult time getting that money for those projects.
AdEdge has worked with these smaller towns and villages to
help them find private funding sources. This often means leading
the municipalities to banks that operate specialized divisions that
lend to municipal utilities.
But even with these private players, there is simply not
enough money for all the treatment and testing projects that
municipalities want to take on, Miller says.
These arent the easiest economic times to find funding for
anything, says Miller. Even very important projects are often
placed on hold. WE
Dan Rafter is a
technical writer and
frequent contributor
to Forester Media, Inc.
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Municipalities throughout
North America face an
ongoing challenge: meeting
demand without resorting to
developing new resources.
By Carol Brzozowski
or many, a supply side approach

is not much of an option. Rather,
they are instituting demand
side reduction programsand
in such sectors as agriculture,
demand response programsin an
effort to achieve water efficiencies.
I believe that the water crisis thats
unfolding before usfaster in some
areas than otherswill be very most
likely solved through demand side
management practices, notes Trevor
Hill, president and CEO of Global Water
Resources.
Some technology is expensive and
tends to drive up the price of water,
which in and of itself creates a very
strong price signal, which has the real
Toros Precision Series Spray Nozzles and Precision Series Rotating Nozzles are commonly
effect of driving down consumption,
used in the West and Southwest.
adds Hill. Sometimes its easier to start
with price signals, which is the demand
side management tool. The water crisis such as it is will be
intended to change the landscape norm from grass lawns to
solved on the demand side with real-time data, price signals,
landscape that thrives in the semi-arid climate, says Matthew
and peer pressure with customers in how they rank against
Veeh, director of government and public affairs for the City of
others in the same vicinity.
Long Beach. The Lawn-to-Garden program provides $2.50
That real-time data comes through technology that helps
per square foot for turf that is replaced with draught-tolerant
customersas well as utilitieseffectively manage their own
landscape appropriate to the climate.
behavior, Hill says. Such technology is so precise that it can
Water restrictions prohibit against irrigating to the point
help property owners know just how much water a lawn or
of excess runoff and irrigating mid-day due to evaporation.
plant needs.
Property owners must fix broken irrigation equipment such
Long Beach, CA, focuses on three factors in working
as line leaks or missing sprinkler heads. On the other hand,
to achieve demand management in irrigation: transforming
rebates are provided for technology such as weather-based
grass lawns to water efficient landscapes, providing rebates
irrigation controllers, rotating nozzles, and stream rotators.
and instituting water restrictions. The citys largest effort, the
We will install, for a nominal fee, weather-based irrigalawn conversion program, is a long-term strategic measure
tion controllers at properties that have a lot of landscape; its
PHOTOS: TORO
Irrigation Demand
Management
cost-effective for us if they have a lot of

landscape, says Veeh.
In the use of the latest technology
to achieve water efficiency, Veeh points
out that it is particular to each property
owner and the landscape size, financial
considerations, and the extent to which
they are willing to invest the effort.
Veeh is a fan of the Web-based
irrigation controllers.
I have five of them under my
control, and I love these things, he says.
They adjust themselves automatically
based on weather in my city. I can adjust
them up and down as I please.
Long Beach installed 70 controllers
throughout the local school district.
For the first time in history, the
guy in charge of the irrigation system
knows whats happening at every site,
says Veeh. If anybody messes with his
controllers, it sends him an e-mail. He
has been able to dial down on a percentage basis so that the grass still looks
decent, but its not lush. Hes been able
to maintain the landscape being able
to apply the minimal amount of water
UP TO
50%
necessary, saving the school district a

tremendous amount of money in the
processschools in California are under
tremendous fiscal pressure. To me, thats
a really exciting technology.
Long Beach also conducts indoor
and outdoor landscape audits.
The city also maintains a website,
which has been completely redesigned
based on the results of a survey of water
customers. It includes tips such as how
to create an inexpensive draught-tolerant landscape, featuring photographs of
attractive draught-tolerant landscapes.
People tell us that the photographs
are one of the most helpful things for
them, in terms of having the confidence
that they can do it and finding the kind
of landscape that they would like for
their yard, says Veeh.
Long Beach offers 22 free landscape
classes at a city site each year, plus a free
online landscape class. For a nominal
fee, a resident can request one of several
local designers the city has on retainer
for a consultation on visualizing alternatives to their grass lawn.
Its one of the most difficult things

about getting rid of the grass, says
Veeh. Theres nothing to design a grass
lawnyou just put down sod or seed. To
do something different, the options are
infinite: big plants, little plants, different
kinds of hardscape, different kinds of
permeable material. A lot of people get
so overwhelmed by the options.
Direct mail is another aspect of
Long Beachs public outreach. Bill inserts
are the most effective form of advertising
and augment billboards, bus stop posters, and announcements in local cable
TV and newspaper outlets. While Long
Beach had started restricting watering
days in 2007 because it was clear the city
was on the verse of a water shortage, the
restrictions were eventually revoked. Per
capita water use dropped about 17%,
and even though the water shortage is
over, Long Beach has maintained a 16%
per capita water use reduction.
People realized they could dramatically cut back their water use, and
their lawn didnt die, notes Veeh, adding
that he hopes with a continuation of the
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citys programs and public affairs, the water use reduction will
be maintained.
Having the backing of the citys board of water commissioners underscores the programs success, Veeh points out.
Our general manager reports to the board, which
approves the budget, and hires and fires the general manager;
so its not just an advisory boardits a real boardand they
are enthusiastic supporters of conservation, says Veeh. That
clears the path for us in our department. Our city council
believes in doing whats feasible in protecting our environment
and to use our resources wisely.
Veeh says he believes its important not to get heavyhanded in the approach to water efficiency.
We believe that most people of Long Beach, if you just
give them the facts, will come to the same conclusion that we
have; so our extraordinary conservation education and messaging has really paid off, he says.
CITY OF SAN DIEGO WATER DEPARTMENT
garden tour as another way of helping customers make the

decision to go draught-tolerant and for them to get ideas and
talk to people who have actually done it, he says.
The city approached about 33 people who had completed
their landscapes, hoping to get some of them to agree to host
their site on the garden tour.
All of them agreed to it, and some of them went out of
their way to create a really pleasant environment for the tourists, says Veeh. They spent the whole day in their front yards
talking to people, distributing literature, and showing people
their landscapes and explaining the whole process to them
the cost, the labor, where they got plants, how to maintain it,
how they killed their grass. I was very pleasantly surprised by
the tremendous enthusiasm that a lot of these people have for
what were trying to do.
For its CII (commercial, industrial, and institutional)
customers, Long Beach works with the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California, which offers
a generic rebate program to regional water
agencies.
We add money to whatever the Metropolitan Water District is willing to put into a rebate,
so well add another $1 to the $3 offered for the
rotating nozzles, for example, says Veeh. Met
has a suite of about 12 different items for the CII
customers.
Since CII customers use water differently
from residential customers, rather than rebate
everything possible, they do a proven water
savings program where they can work with a
customer and identify means of saving water.
Then the customer can implement the program, prove that the waters been saved, and they
get a paymenta rebateover that proven water
savings.
Long Beach has had its own proven water
savings program for seven years, and now that
Met has implemented its program, we are going
to piggyback on that just like its normal rebate
program, says Veeh. Met offers a certain
amount
of water savings through their program,
San Diegos public outreach also includes a focused media campaign that includes
and
were
going to add on top of that, so Long
Facebook sites, Twitter posts, bus and trolley wraps, light pole flags, bumper stickers
Beach
CII
customers will get an extra amount.
on all city vehicles, a monthly e-newsletter, a poster contest, and a video contest.
When it comes to the energy water nexus,
Veeh says while Long Beach doesnt make
If Veeh could change anything, it would be to see the
energy conservation a big focus of the water conversation, we
landscape norm change at a faster pace.
definitely try to make people aware of it, he says, adding that
I understand people have lived decades thinking about
the topic is introduced through forums for CII customers, for
nothing but grass lawns, and its hard to conceptualize someexample.
thing else, he says. There is a lot of work involved, a lot of
Veeh says he believes if a water agency isnt charging a
cost, and people have busy lives. Its a professional frustration
price where it is able to maintain its own infrastructure, then it
to realize there are real-world constraints, but, nevertheless,
is not charging the right price.
youre anxious to see bigger change than maybe is practical.
In Long Beach, we certainly do that, he says. I think
That same program has yielded what Veeh considers the
its a real frustration to the environmentalists, because they
greatest success in Long Beachs approaches.
see environmental degradation in the source water in those
What surprised me the most is a lot of the customers
watersheds, and they would like to see more money spent in
who have joined our lawn and garden program have been
those watersheds.
incredibly enthusiastic. Last spring, we wanted to have a spring
We dont have a pipeline to a watershed outside of our
2013
WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL & WATER RESOURCES CONGRESS

CINCINNATI, OHIO | MAY 19-23, 2013
LESS THAN A MONTH AWAY!
Showcasing the Future
Celebrating 100 Years of Water Research in Cincinnati...

offering numerous presentations on EPA research
The one great thing about EWRI compared with

other associations to which I belong, is that EWRI
has the total water community represented.
- Paul Bizier, P.E., BCEE, F.ASCE
For more information, go to www.ewricongress.org
The City of San Diego utilizes

smart irrigation technology
as part of their demand
management protocol.
The city also has passed

a more restrictive ordinance
against water waste that
restricts watering times and
runoff, says Jacoby.
Essentially, San Diego
has had a water conservation
program in place for more
than 20 years.
The city offers programs and outreach that
continuously affirms the
need to conserve water. The
city also offers surveys at
no cost to residential and
large irrigation customers
providing feedback on their water use, items that need repair,
and adjustments to their irrigation schedules. Additionally,
rebates and incentives are offered through local and regional
programs. Another feature of the program is a website,
www.sandiego.gov/water/conservation/index.shtml, featuring a
watering calculator and links to information on plant material and low water use landscape design.
We participate in a regional landscape contest, offer
classes on landscape topics, and participate in more than 60
public events where we promote water conservation in the
landscape, says Jacoby.
San Diegos public outreach also includes a focused media
campaign that includes Facebook sites, Twitter posts, bus and
trolley wraps, light pole flags, bumper stickers on all city vehicles,
a monthly e-newsletter, a poster contest, and a video contest.
During our Level 2 restrictions, we had media spots on
TV and radio, and a banner pulled behind a plane during
heavy beach days, says Jacoby.
The Level 2 campaign slogan was No Time to Waste, No
Water to Waste. With the Level 2 campaign over, the current
slogan is: San Diegans Waste No Water.
San Diego is a contributing member to the Water Conservation Garden ( thegarden.org ) that demonstrates appropriate
irrigation and the use of low water plant material. The city
also offers rebates for smart controllers, rotator nozzles, micro
irrigation, turf conversion, and rain barrels. The city also has
a discount coupon for low water use plants at nurseries. As a
result of the citys efforts, our overall water use has gone down
and our irrigation meter customers have been the leaders in
water use reduction, indicating that water is being saved in the
landscape, says Jacoby.
You can see a change in the plant palate as you drive
around town. People are much more interested in changing
their landscape.
Irrigation technology used in San Diego to meet demand
management goals includes smart controllers, rotator nozzles,
drip irrigation, and in-line emitters. City parksas well as
CITY OF SAN DIEGO WATER DEPARTMENT
region, he adds. We buy water thats

imported by the Metropolitan Water
District. We cant pay Met more than it
charges, and we cant charge our customers more than the cost of doing business.
Im really sympathetic to the idea that
water is basically really inexpensive. We
sell about four gallons for a penny, and
with the economic downturn we believe
that had some reduction in the per capita
water use. Wed like to think that people
are conserving because its the right thing
to do as well, so people are sensitive to
price and the pocketbooks.
San Diego, CA, relies on imported
water for more than 80% of its water
supply.
In recent years, we have experienced climatic and regulatory droughts,
notes JoEllen Jacoby, supervising
landscape conservation designer for San
Diegos Water Conservation Program, an arm of the public
utilities department.
One such drought extended from 2009 and 2011.
In addition, competing forces for a limited supply means
we cannot continue to expect an increasing supply of water for
a growing population, she adds.
public schools and universitiesare incrementally being retrofitted to central control systems.
The energy/water nexus is a significant factor in irrigation
demand management and is increasingly becoming part of
municipal water conservation efforts, such as in San Diego.
We always teach people that there is a water energy nexus,
and the local power utility, San Diego Gas & Electric [SDG&E],
has collaborated with us on several programs, including an
irrigation water management program, notes Jacoby.
SDG&E has built a demonstration center for energyefficient fixtures, and it showcases low-water use plants and
micro-irrigation, she adds. Being at the end of the imported
pipeline from the Bay-Delta and the Colorado River, it takes
more energy to deliver water to San Diego, and thus, more
energy is saved through water wise consumption.
One of the challenges in implementing San Diegos
approach is maintaining a continuing presence in the minds of
our customers and changing the image of San Diego to a more
climate-appropriate and less tropical landscape, says Jacoby.
Our current outreach campaign, San Diegans Waste No
Water, reinforces this ethic and shows that the community is
behind it, overcoming ideas that micro-irrigation is doomed to
fail and that low water use means drab and ugly, she says.
Part of demand management irrigation entails creating an environment that demands less in the first place. The
Maximum Applied Water Allowance (MAWA), is a landscape
water budget that provides 70% of the water necessary for high
water use plants with a highly efficient irrigation system, says
Jacoby. The MAWA can be achieved by a mixture of high and
low water use plants and a mixture of irrigation delivery types
or by a landscape that is completely moderate water use plants
with a low-volume spray system, such as rotator nozzles. The
budget varies based on the local climate as measured by the
evapotranspiration (ETo).
Based on the requirements of State of California law AB
1881, all new landscapes cannot exceed a Maximum Applied
Water Amount of 0.7 x ETo x 0.62 x landscape area, says
Jacoby. Grass is limited to 10% of the site for commercial
sites. No grass in areas less than eight feet wide unless watered
below grade. Additional requirements for separate irrigation
meters have been imposed.
Retrofits are not regulated but are encouraged through
San Diegos incentive programs, which are focused on the
retrofit market, says Jacoby.
Cary, NC, has a comprehensive water conservation program that includes educational outreach initiatives, financial
incentives, and regulations.
The main incentive for customers to manage their
demand is our increased block rate, or tiered rate structure,
under which excessive irrigation will result in much higher
unit water rates, says Marie Cefalo, conservation program
supervisor for Cary.
Carys focus is on residential customers, who comprise
70% of the demographics and volume of water used. Outreach
is done through a comprehensive website, the Beat the Peak
campaign, a fix-a-leak week campaign, free water audits, and
grassroots outreach with block leaders. Since 1998, the town
has held a multimedia Beat the Peak campaign to educate
and remind customers about WaterWise irrigation practices as

well as the ordinanceslawn enthusiasts play a game on the
citys website to save ladybugs from a leaky hose to win watersaving tools such as shut-off nozzles, hose timers, rain gauges,
and soil probes as supplies last.
The driving factor for the programs was short-term capacity issues in 1996, but is now rooted in long-term water resource
management. That long-term commitment to water efficiency
as the best management practice as opposed to conservation as
an immediate drought response has been an obstacle, Cefalo
says. Nonetheless, there have been successes. Case in point: the
average residential gallon per day/capita, adjusted for weather,
has been reduced from 75 in 1996 to 57 in 2011. Overall water
use in 2012 was 88 gallons per capita per day.
One of the hooks that Cary uses to attract people to the
program is a turf buy-back program thats been in effect since
fiscal year 2009.
It provides a financial incentive for our customers to
reduce outdoor water use by removing turf and replacing it
with either a warm season grass or a natural area, says Cefalo.
We also offer free irrigation audits and will replace one zone
with free precision spray nozzles.
The towns primary regulatory demand management
tool is its alternate day watering ordinance. Begun in 2000,
the ordinance spreads and shaves peak usage by allowing all
customers to water up to three days per week depending on
their address.
electricity which equates to saving $70 a

year on your utility bills, says Pingatore.
Odd/even watering days is the most
popular way to institute demand management programs, says Brian Vinchesi,
president of Irrigation Consulting in
Pepperell, MA, and the 2009 EPA WaterSense Irrigation Partner of the Year.
The problem is when you tell
somebody whos used to watering every
day that they can water every other day
they more than double their time, so they
actually use up more water, says Vinchesi.
Youve got people who go to one day or
two days a week, and most people dont
know how to manage that.
Vinchesi says instead of a dictated
Rebates can help in community

efforts to reduce water use, Vinchesi says.
Education is huge, and, as much as
I hate to say this, licensing is needed, he
says. Anybody can be an irrigation contractor. There are no barriers to entry.
Theres very little education. Theres no
incentive unless its required. Im a big
proponent of licensing of irrigation contractors because they know water and
water is very important.
New Jersey and North Carolina
have been successful with licensing
programs, adds Vinchesi. Vinchesi
says the United States is getting better in establishing green codes which
require more water efficient building
GLOBAL WATER
The water waste ordinance and

rain sensor ordinance also help us manage our irrigation demand, says Cefalo.
These ordinances are supported by two
field staff who leave notice of violation
for customers out of compliance.
Cary has had year-round watering
ordinances since 2000. Restrictions were
temporarily instituted in 2008 as a result
of the drought.
Cary has required separate irrigation meters since 2002.
We have irrigation design specifications and require customers to submit
irrigation plans, says Cefalo. The two
has recently installed an AMI [Advanced
Metering Infrastructure] system and will
soon launch a Web portal for customers
to view their consumptioneven as fine
as on an hourly basis.
With new construction, Cefalo
says she observes an increasing use of
warm season grasses and fewer automated irrigation systems being installed.
Those doing retrofits are taking advantage of the free precision spray nozzles
offered to those customers requesting
an irrigation audit. The town also offers
WaterWise workshops focusing on plant
selection, landscape design, and rainwater harvesting.
The droughts of 2002 and 2007
to 2008 prompted several water efficiency measures in Cary. After the latter
drought, the town instituted three new
programs: the turf buy-back and high
efficiency toilet rebate programs and a
program on building a rain barrel sold at
cost. All programs have remained since.
The energy-water nexus is becoming increasingly emphasized in some
community programs.
In Valparaiso, IN, the citys utilities
department sends special statements with
each months bill that usually focuses on
water conservation, notes Jim Pingatore,
water conservation planner.
Our program is one of public
awareness and public education, he says.
A recent statement promoted the
water-energy nexus by encouraging
WaterSense showerheads, pointing out
that showering accounts for nearly 17%
of indoor residential water use or about
30 gallons per household per day.
The last sentence of the message
says that with less energy required to
heat the shower water, you also save on
Many utilities find that encouraging homeowners to replace lawn with droughtresistant landscaping helps significantly reduce residential demand.
water schedule, hed rather see municipal

require the use of smart controllers.
The smart controller decides when
the best time is to water, he says. Just
because you can water every day or
every other day a week doesnt mean you
have to if you have a smart controller.
I have a mandatory every other day
schedule where I live, but the state of
Massachusetts is going to go to a mandatory one day a week, he adds. I dont
know a soil in the whole state that can
hold one inch of water in a week. Theres
no science. Its all politics or knee-jerk
reaction.
construction. Unless a new building is

being constructed under such codes,
or as a WaterSense home or Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) for homes, that is usually the
only time a home is built to be water
efficient, he says.
Unfortunately, on the residential
side, the cheaper you can put it in the
better, but cheaper may not be more
water efficient, he says.
Retrofits are helping water efficiency, Vinchesi says.
Most systems get better because
they are being retrofitted with newer
technology, he says. If you just change

a sprinkler that was made in the 1980s to
a sprinkler that was made in the 2000s,
youre going to get a better sprinkler. Its
more efficient and more uniform in putting its water down.
For water agencies, demand
management often comes in the form
of undertaking education or rebate programs to help customers reduce water
demand, especially in peak periods such
as summer. To that end, technology
often helps to achieve high efficiencies.
automated scheduling engine, and either

SWAT [Soil and Water Assessment Tool]
accreditation or the EPA WaterSense
label ensures superior product performance and reliable results.
HydroPoint has worked with cities
including Santa Clarita, CA; Houston,
TX; and Charleston, SC, to address
the rising costs of irrigating city parks,
landscape districts, and facilities, as well
as community concerns over runoff and
environmental damage.
After Newport Beach, CA, offered
The EPA and other experts estimate that as

much as 50% of landscape water use is wasted
due to overwatering caused by inefficiencies
in irrigation methods and systems.
Using smart irrigation technology
aids in demand management for water
agencies.
As water supplies dwindle, cities
and agencies must secure more reliable water sources, says Chris Spain,
CEO and president of HydroPoint Data
Systems, manufacturer of WeatherTRAK
smart irrigation controllers. Conserving water is the lowest cost source of
water for providers and their customers,
particularly when compared to developing new infrastructure or purchasing
water from wholesaler agencies.
Landscape irrigation often presents
the greatest conservation opportunity
for communities as anywhere from 30%
to 60% of local water supply is used
outdoors, Spain point out.
The EPA and other experts estimate that as much as 50% of landscape
water use is wasted due to overwatering
caused by inefficiencies in irrigation
methods and systems, he says. Agencies educate both commercial and
residential customers about the benefits
of smart irrigation with landscape and
outdoor water audits as well as rebates.
Adding a weather-based smart irrigation controller to an existing system
is a cost-effective, simple upgrade that
creates immediate efficiency and water
bill savings. A smart irrigation controller
that offers real-time, accurate evapotranspiration [ET] weather data, an
a WeatherTRAK controller program

to residents of the Buck Gully area in
2007, the city achieved a 20% reduction in runoff to protect ocean coastline
in the area. HydroPoints Smart Yard
program now offers homeowners in
Riverside, Petaluma, and St. Helena, CA;
and Salem City, UT, a turnkey installation of a WeatherTRAK controller
that is financed by water utilities with a
low-cost program fee on the customers
monthly water bill.
Spain says people are starting to
understand the role water has on energy.
Virtually everything has water
embedded somewhere in the supply
chain and manufacturing process, he
says. Landscapes typically contribute
20% of a propertys value and on average
account for 58% of all urban water usage.
Landscapes are routinely overwatered by 30 to 300%, presenting a
high-value target for agencies demand
management programs, says Spain.
In addition to water, energy, and
cost savings, any reduction in landscape
over-watering also lowers the damaging
environmental effects of runoff, which
transports landscape chemicals and
other contaminants into the local water
supply, he points out.
Weather-based smart irrigation
controllers apply the right amount of
water at the right time, protecting communities from plant loss, slope erosion,
hardscape damage, mold and mildew

risk for buildings, and the mass loading
of pollutants in water supply as a result
of runoff, adds Spain.
He also points out that EPA links
water and energy savings, equating 1
gallon of water use with 4 watt-hours
of power, creating a direct correlation
between energy and water use.
The California Energy Commission
estimates that almost 20% of the states
electrical response use and more than
30% of non-power plant natural gas use is
related to the transportation and treatment of water and wastewater, he says.
Spain points out that there is now
legislation influencing the use of smart
irrigation technologies by local water
agencies and cities. Case in point: California Assembly Bill AB 1881 required
local agencies, counties, and cities to
implement water efficient landscape
ordinances by 2010, spurring adoption of smart controller technology and
requiring water budget allocations for
large-scale landscapes.
Recent updates to Californias
building code now require the installation of smart irrigation controllers on
both residential and commercial new
construction. California water agencies
are also required by SBX7-7 and AB1420
to actively promote water conservation
initiatives, with the goal of achieving
20% reductions in water use by 2020.
We see similar legislation being
discussed in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and
other regions where water supply is pressured by increased demand, drought or
changing weather patterns, says Spain.
Toros Precision Series Spray
Nozzles and Precision Series Rotating Nozzles are commonly used in the
West and Southwest, usually promoted
through rebate programs or educational
efforts as part of a larger water efficiency
management plan, says Mike Baron, the
companys National Specifications Manager for Water Management Products.
The technology that has typically been used has had a high flow rate
and high precipitation rateanywhere
from 1.6 inches per hour to two inches
per hour, notes Baron. Using these
higher efficiency nozzles, the flow rate
is lowered, and uniformity is enhanced
such that the amount of water being
discharged in a given time by a sprinkler
system is lower even to about 50%.

A second area thats taking hold is
the encouragement of homeowners to
replace sections of lawn with droughttolerant plant material irrigated with drip
products, says Baron.
Another way to affect demand
management is lowering flow rates
significantly down to the gallons per hour
rate and changing the plant material thats
being installed or upgraded in a landscape, he points out. Drip irrigation is
a super low-flow technology. Instead of
gallons per minute, were talking about
gallons per hour, and the water is delivered directly at or near the root zone of
the plant material.
Another popular technology: soil
moisture sensors, a wireless device that
allows a property owner to communicate
back to a receiver that interfaces with an
irrigation controller.
After the rain has occurred and the
soil is saturated with water, you might get
seven to 10 days before that reservoir of
moisture in the soil needs replenishment,
says Baron. A soil moisture sensor allows
you to extend the number of days that a
system is off, especially after a rain event.
Moisture sensing systems impact
the demand for water by making sure
property owners dont water unnecessarily because theres sufficient moisture in
the soil, he adds. You also have smart
controllers that make an assessment of
the weather, calculate what the irrigation
schedule should be based on weather
information and adjust the irrigation timers accordingly.
Those key technologies are made
available because of the higher cost of
water, but also because manufacturers
understand there is a return on investment calculation that people are starting
to make, says Baron. Another factor in
demand management is the implementation of tiered rates, which charges more
per unit of water as the property owners
consumption increases, Baron says.
I might pay $1 per unit at my base
level, but I might be paying $6 per unit at
my top tier level, he says. That is a clear
message to reduce water consumption to
the property owner, and that is consistent
with the movement within the water
agency community to recover the full
cost of the high quality water 24/7 to the
end customer.
Tiered rates, as well as the adoption

of new technologies such as high-efficiency nozzles, serve to recover the full
cost of water, Baron points out.
Its finally getting to the point where
its more expensive to waste the water
than to pay a professional to correct an
irrigation system deficiency or fix a problem, points out Baron.
Municipalities address not only the
water use of their property owners, but
the public property as well. Stormwater
plays a key role in that.
Theres a convergence of stormwater management philosophy and also
demand management efforts in that
when it rains, you want to keep more of
the first flush on property, as opposed to
moving all of the water from a rainstorm
off of the property, into the gutter and
away from the development as quickly as
possible, says Baron.
Educational initiatives on the part
of water agencies and manufacturers
have never been higher than they are
today, with Saturday and evening classes
accommodating the publics schedule,
Baron says.
At least in California, the agencies
see education as a very key component
of demand management in helping their
constituencies understand what it takes to
bring quality, reliable water to an urban
area, he says.
For a long time, water purveyors
have not engaged in discussions about
what they do, Baron says.
They do the work thats necessary to
make sure drinkable water comes out of
that faucet 24/7, and we just got spoiled,
he says. The United States on average
spends less on water and wastewater
management and processing as a percentage of income than any other developed
country, so these agencies have done a
wonderful job of doing what they were
told to do and at a fraction of the cost of
bottled water.
People pay $1 a gallon for supermarket water, he says. The water that
you get from a water purveyor is about
two-tenths of one cent per gallon. We
dont mind paying $1 per gallon when
were just buying a little bit at a time, but
we get upset when we see a bill for two
Residential demand management begins
with the right tools installed onsite.
months water use that is $150.

It may take a different mindset to
drive that concept home, Baron says,
pointing to fuel consumption as an
example.
If I ask a group of contractors or
a homeowners association what is the
price of a gallon of gasoline, everybody
can tell me immediately, he says. If I ask
how much the cost of a gallon of water is,
nobody can answer that question.
When you buy gasoline, you buy it,
pay for it, and its stored in your car. Its
your gasoline, and now you are managing
that gasoline. You have an instantaneous
communication of how fast youre consuming that gasoline thats yours and how
much you have left with the fuel gauge.
In contrast, water is paid for after it
is consumed.
That behavioral difference says
a lot and thats why some agencies are
trying to invest in smart meters that
will not only show how much water is
being consumed, but gives access to that
information on an ongoing basis, as well
as leak detection.
Oftentimes, a lot of the costs a water
agency faces, in terms of infrastructure,
is handling peak demand because of
sprinkler system use in the summer,
Baron says.
If you can wave a magic wand and
convert every high-flow nozzle to a lowerflow, high-efficiency nozzle, youd be
able to reduce peak demand up to 30%,
he says. Imagine what that would do in
terms of delaying the infrastructure costs.
PHOTO: TORO
Baron says the more manufacturers

understand what challenges the water
agencies face and what the true cost of
delivering water is, the more they can
focus on developing technologies that
will help them accomplish their goal.
Most manufacturers are going to
say we want you to charge the full cost
of water, not as the cost of water goes up,
but because the cost of wasting the water
goes up, so there is more of a financial
incentive there to invest in a professional
resolution of the problem and new technology, he says.
Baron points to an innovative
program launched by the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern California
that is going beyond product rebates to
offer service rebates.
They are telling the property management companies, and homeowners
associations that they will reimburse for
half the cost of water management services provided they are saving the amount
of water theyre claiming, says Baron.
A contractor assesses the area,
creates a water budget based on square
footage, plant material and weather information so that the property owner knows
if they are at 70% efficiency, there is an
exact amount of water theyre going to
use each monthakin to a water budget.
This is the first time theyve said
theyre going to do a rebate program
for water management services versus
a rebate on a product installation, says
Baron. Its another way theyre trying
to influence total demand. Its a very
multidimensional approach.
In educational efforts, the agricultural industry is addressed in a separate
manner.
Ag water is not treated to the level
that the urban potable water is treated,
but the price of that ag water is typically
very low compared to what an urban
community will pay, points out Baron.
As such, urban users may point out
that since agricultural use is 80% of all of
the water used in California, that sector
should reduce its use. In turn, agricultural
users may point out that the cost of food
may increase without sufficient water.
Thats the challenge, says Baron.
Oftentimes, the allocation decisions are
not based simply on pricing mechanisms
but are based on social, environmental
and political considerations.
Even so, there are as many technological innovations going on in the
agricultural irrigation side of industry as
there is in the turf and landscape side of
the business, says Baron.
On the ag side of things, there are
also financial incentives to encourage
the installation of high-efficiency drip
systems, subsurface drip systems or
pivot systems, he says.
The water-energy nexus also is critical in California, Baron says.
Two-thirds of the rain and snow fall
in northern California, but two-thirds of
Californias population lives in southern
California, so we have a particularly challenging situation because of the energy
input to bring in water from northern
California or from the Colorado River
to southern California, he points out.
Probably more than any other state,
California has a more significant energy
component in its water supply.
Demand response irrigation is a
relatively new concept in agriculture
because all of the irrigation systems
that have ever been built didnt consider demand response because it didnt
exist until now, says David Zoldoske,
the director of the Center for Irrigation
Technology at California State University in Fresno and an expert in subsurface drip systems.
There are several concurrent
actions, he says. We need to review
and look at what current systems are
and whether they can or cannot accommodate demand response charges. The

www.waterefficiency.net/irrigation
other part is to understand how demand

response is going to impact the irrigation industry and to educate growers
and irrigation designers and dealers on
what they need to do to accommodate
demand response on future systems.
Zoldoske says it doesnt matter if
a drip line is buried or on top of the
ground.
Its about the hydraulic capacity of the systemwhether the system
is groundwater or surface water and
systems that are not pressurized, he
says. Sprinkler and drip microsystems
should be able to accommodate the
demand response in most cases.
There are going to be lots of exceptions depending on the water source,
and if there are pipelines that have to
be filled up as one system gets turned
on, he adds. Surface irrigation flood
systems are probably going to be most
effective by demand response.
Zoldoske says systems that require
siphons to irrigate would be probably one
of the most affected by demand response.
Its very difficult to turn off the
system, and youve got to have other
accommodations, he says. Youve got
to have buffering in the system and
standby pumps that are run by diesel.
Without doing a thorough analysis of
the industry, its impossible to determine
what the effects will be. We need to start
out by reviewing whats out there, how
its operated and what well need to do to
accommodate demand response.
The questions that would be posed:
what is the water source, how is it being
pumped, what are alternative solutions,
is there on-farm storage, how does the
conjunctive use of both surface and
groundwater affect the operation of the
system, is there an ability to shut the
system down for a short period of time
and then start it back up and how does
that affect the total irrigation management on the farm.
Other questions: is there excess
capacity? What time of year is it? Is it in
the middle of a heat wave? What crop
is being grown? Whats the application

rate? What are the soil water holding
conditions?
You have to get a matrix of that
and then back into it and ask if you
have advanced warning and how far in
advance will you know so that you can
store extra water in the root zone prior
to the shut-off, says Zoldoske.
Its a new chapter in managing
irrigation, he adds. There is going to be
lots of discovery and things to be understood, and its certainly going to require
a lot of science on this to make sure we
get it right and minimize irrigation costs
for the grower by maximizing production. Thats the name of the game.
In an effort to move toward a more
sustainable energy and water future,
EPA has drafted Principles for an
Energy Water Future ( http://water.epa.
gov/action/energywater.cfm ), in which it
encourages all stakeholdersincluding
government, utilities, private companies,
and ratepayersto consider water-saving principles and incorporate them into
their work.
EPAs Water-Smart Landscapes
publication (www.epa.gov/watersense/docs/
water-efficient_landscaping_508_final.pdf)
provides its perspective on water efficient

landscaping and irrigation.
Among EPAs recommendations for
communities struggling with drought,
EPA suggests water restriction compliance, checking for leaks, fixture
upgrades, water reuse, and letting grass
go brown. EPAs WaterSense program
also emphasizes the energy-water nexus.
EPAs WaterSense program recommends homeowners manage their irrigation systems and landscape practices to
reduce water demand.
Simple steps such as adjusting the
irrigation system with the seasons,
avoiding watering midday when much
is lost to evaporation, and setting
appropriate irrigation zones can lead to
significant water savings.
WaterSense also recommends
homeowners use qualified irrigation professionals such as WaterSense
irrigation partners to check and repair
irrigation systems and ensure they are
operating efficiently.
Changing landscape practices can
also dramatically reduce water demand,
EPA points out.
Using regionally appropriate and low

water-using plants reduces a landscapes
need for supplemental water, while
adding mulch around shrubs, trees, and
garden plants reduces evaporation and
keeps water in the soil where its needed,
according to EPA. The agency has tips on
saving water outdoors on its website, at
www.epa.gov/WaterSense/outdoor/index.html.
While many Americans know
about the importance of saving energy,
and many know about the importance
of saving water, few know about the
direct connection between saving
both, according to the agency. It takes
a considerable amount of energy to
deliver and treat the water used every
day, the agency points out: letting a
faucet run for five minutes uses about
as much energy as letting a 60-W light
bulb run for 14 hours. Heating water for
bathing, shaving, cooking, and cleaning also requires a lot of energy. Homes
with electric water heaters, for example,
spend one-quarter of their electric bill
just to heat water.
The agency suggests the installation of WaterSense-labeled products to
save water and energy. Rob Zimmerman
envisions that, eventually, we have to
make our built-in environment resistant
to drought or flood. Essentially, combining indoor water efficiency practices
with outdoor water efficiency practices
produces the optimal results.
Zimmerman is manager of Engineering and Water Conservation and
Sustainability for Kohler, and works with
not only the companys new product
development engineering, but also with
the companys sales and marketing
teams to bring awareness to the need
for more water efficiency in plumbing
products and what choices people can
make to reduce their water consumption, particularly in the indoors.
In some parts of the country, the
vast majority of residential water use is
indoor water, says Zimmerman. There
might be a seasonal component to it, like
here in Wisconsin where we might be
watering grass a couple of months out of
the year.
This year, when we had heat and
drought, the water use kicked up significantly in the Midwest. But in places like
in California, outdoor water use can be
the vast majority of residential use.
Thus, strategies for meeting demand

management must be site-specific, Zimmerman says.
There are good principles of design
in terms of landscape as well as how a
home is built and how its fitted out with
plumbing fixtures, he says. That ought
to be readily available and well-known.
Studies point to three factors that
account for the vast majority of water
use in the home: the toilet, the shower
and the clothes washer, says Zimmerman. Faucet aerators provide the best
return on the investment, he adds.
Zimmerman notes a strong uptake
on WaterSense-labeled toilets.
I think the reason is that the products are competitively priced, but also
they are designing them to use less water
and perform even better than the old
1.6 gallons per flush and certainly better
than the 3.5 gallons per flush that many
people are still replacing, he says.
The feedback were getting consistently is I was reluctant to change
out my toilet because I heard the stories
from long ago about low-flow toilets not
working well. People are amazed that
their toilet works better how and is using
half the water that the old one did.
Rebates get people off of the couch,
and thats what theyre designed to do,
says Zimmerman. I think one of the
challenges that the water utilities have is
making sure theres awareness, particularly where theres a new program. They
need to get the word out that these programs exist, but when they do that well,
then generally the rebates get snatched
up pretty quickly.
As a manufacturer, Zimmerman
notes that rebates help drive demand.
That helps drive innovation, which
helps get new products out into the marketplace, even in places where there are
not rebates, he says. The cities that have
those programs have helped transform
the market for the whole country. WE
Carol Brzozowski specializes in topics
related to resource management and
technology.
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GUEST EDITORIAL | ANGELA R. RUBERTO, JUNESEOK LEE, AND ADAM BAYER
The WaterEnergy Nexus

A water-energy nexus analysis of a
public university in California
ABSTRACT
IN THIS STUDY, WATER and
energy use data

(20062011) from water wells are
analyzed for San Jose State University (SJSU). SJSU is a four-year public
university with an enrollment of 30,000
and located in San Jose, CA. It is found
out that water and energy use correlate
each other, and their use decreased
since 2008, due to SJSU sustainability
movement. Water savings have significant impacts on associated energy
savings, and they double the benefits in
economic and natural resource savings
aspects. The research outcomes will be
disseminated to public relations within
the University to promote sustainability
movement within SJSU.
structure. When these infrastructures

were founded, the energy and water
were not expensive and people did not
envision that these resources would be
unsustainable.
Recently, ASCE assigned a grade of
D- to water infrastructures within the US
(ASCE 2009). Leakage rates (water lost
while transporting water from treatment
plant to tap water) within drinking water
infrastructures reaches 32% in some
utilities. Pump stations use significant
portions of energy (up to 90% of the
energy cost expended in water supply and
treatment systems) to provide appropriate
pressure for delivering treated drinking
water through pipe network systems. It
is clear that water leakages are consuming energy resources quite significantly.
About 6 billion gallons of fresh water
is known to be lost every year (AWWA
2007). In this vein, reduced demand
for potable water could also translate to
energy savings and associated carbon
footprint reductions. The two resources
are closely linked, as water is required to
produce energy and energy is required
to treat and transport water. Waterrelated energy use accounts for about
19% of Californias electricity, 30% of
its natural gas, and 88 billion gallons of
diesel fuel every year (Krebs 2007).
By 2025, more than 2.8 billion
people in 48 countries will face either
water stress or water scarcity conditions
(Solutions 1998). It is expected that
water scarcity will result in a shortage of
freshwater that limits food production,
deteriorates the environment or ecosystems, and prevents economic development. Water is required to produce
energy, and energy is required to use
water appropriately, which are termed
water-energy-nexus. It is evident that
energy and water resources will soon be
very limited by adhering to conventional
resource management plans.
In this paper, the authors investigated water, associated energy use, and
their implications within SJSU. The
Objectives below address specific objec-
INTRODUCTION
National Academy of Engineering
(2008) announced 14 major challenges
that will have to be addressed in the
21st centurymany of the challenges
are related to sustainability of water and
energy. The Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) program
is also encouraging sustainable use of
water and energy (UGBC 2006). Nobel
Laureate Richard Smalley emphasized
that energy and water will be the top
problems of humanity for the next 50
years. How we use energy and water will
be the key engineering approaches for
the future. In most developed countries,
centralized grid systems constitute the
major energy and water supply infra36 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET
Figure 1. Aerial view of San Jose State Universitys main campus (from Google Maps)
tives of the paper. Literature Surveys

includes literatures on the water-energy
nexus specifically focused on water
distribution systems. Characteristics of
water distribution systems within SJSU
are explained in the section: Characteristics of SJSUs Water System. Results
discusses the results and analysis of
data. Finally, the conclusion is drawn in
Analysis of Data and Discussions.
OBJECTIVES
Specific objectives of this paper are to:
1. Examine the available data
(20062011) for SJSUs main well
water use and pumps energy use to
assess their correlation.
2. Analyze inherent reasoning
for time dependent trends and
variations for water and energy
consumption.
3. Perform economic analysis due to
water/energy use change.
(e.g., avoiding peak-hour pumping and

making effective use of storage tanks by
filling them during off-peak periods and
draining them during peak periods),
increasing the wire-to-water efficiency
of pumps through periodic efficiency
testing (e.g., ensuring that pumps are
operating near their best efficiency
point and replacing inefficient pumps
and/or motors), and ensuring proper
application of variable-speed drives are
good strategies to for system energy
optimization.
Pelli and Hitz (2000) examined
water distribution systems to assess
energy savings using indicator concepts. These energy indicators enabled
examine the efficiency with which the
energy consumption of a water distribution system operates. They used two
indicators: 1) structural indicators, which
involve and are dependent on, the spatial distribution between water sources
Table 1. Water Sources and Users

SUPPLIERS
South Bay Water Recycling

(SBWR)
Martin Luther King (public)
Library toilet and urinals
END USE
Central Plant
cooling towers
SJSU Main Well

(SJSU)
All other
buildings,
dormitory,
and potable
water needs
San Jose Water Company

(SJWC)
Steamer type
fire hydrants
Backup when SJSU Main
Well is not available
Irrigation System
LITERATURE SURVEYS
The amount of water distributed and
the energy required to distribute it have
a dependent relationship in any water
supply systems. Energy is required to
move water from sources to end users,
but the quantity of energy required
to do so is variable. Boulos and Bros
(2000) presented tactics for optimizing
water distribution systems energy use in
conjunction with assessment of carbon
footprint.
They noted that decreasing the
volume of water pumped (e.g., adjusting pressure zone boundaries), lowering
the head against which water is pumped
(e.g., optimizing supply pressures),
recognizing energy tariff incentives
and water users, and 2) quality indicators that represent the ratio of effective
energy used to transport the water over
the minimal amount of energy required.
By nature, energy consumption within
water distribution systems is unavoidable considering losses associated with
pipe major and minor losses, energy
dissipation at the outlet, pressure, and
elevation head changes between sources
and end users. In this vein, optimization of both indicators can realize both
resource conservation and financial
savings. It is recommended that these
indicators should be carefully considered at the initial phase of the planning
and operation and maintenance phases.
According to Biehl and Inman
(2010), resource conservation, system

optimization, and cost savings go hand
in hand, and small changes can have a
big payoff. They emphasize that optimizing a water distribution system has many
benefits. These include, but are not limited to, reduced operating cost, reduced
greenhouse gas emissions, reduced
facility energy use and cost, prolonged
life of operating equipment, and overall
increased sustainability of resources.
Monitoring and maintaining the most
efficient pumps are also a viable technique for system optimization.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SJSUS WATER SYSTEM

The city of San Jose is located in northern California, which is the third largest
city in the state and the 10th largest city
in US. San Jose is considered to be the
capital of Silicon Valley. SJSUs main
campus is over 154 acres and supports
roughly 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with about 3,500 living
on campus. The main campus includes
about 43 buildings such as classrooms,
dormitories, science labs, athletic facilities, kitchens, and cafeterias (Figure 1).
The campus is capable of pulling water
from the San Jose Water Company
(SJWC) and South Bay Water Recycling
(SBWR) to meet its demand, but meets
most using its own on-campus well.
Table 1 summarizes SJSUs water distribution source breakdown.
South Bay Water Recycling (SBWR)
connects with the SJSU water distribution system at the edge of campus (Martin Luther King Library, Figure 1). It is
currently used in toilets and urinals at
the MLK and will be used for the same
purposes to the Student Union, which is
currently under construction (expected
to open during 2014). In addition, it
supplies water to the cooling towers at
the central plant. Beginning December
2011, SBWR has been used for irrigation
of the campus that is around 26 acres of
landscaping. There are three turnouts
for the SJWC on campus, and they are
located at 4th Street and San Salvador,
7th Street and San Fernando, and 9th
street near to the Central Plant. All fire
hydrants on campus are supplied by
GUEST | ANGELA R. RUBERTO, JUNESEOK LEE, AND ADAM BAYER
Water Vs. Time
Figure 2. Water versus time from November 2006 to 2011
Energy Vs. Time
Figure 3. Energy versus time from November of 2006 to 2011
Water Usage Vs. Energy
Figure 4. Water usage versus energy usage from November 2006 to present
the SJWC. Besides the hydrants, water

is supplied by SJWC only as a backup
should the main well require repair, or
the campus demand exceed the wells
capacity.
The main well, the campus primary
water source, has an elevation of 91 feet
above mean sea level, and the entire
campus lies within the same pressure
zone. The main well is located in the
southeast quadrant of the campus, Village Housing, Joe West hall, and most
closely, the Aquatics center (Figure
1). This well services the 43 buildings
located on the main campus and the
central plant through domestic
service connections. The campus
has pulled its own water as far
back as 1940 and the main well
has been serviced by the same
Variable Frequency Drive pump
for the past 24 years. Pressure
had been maintained at about 80
psig until November 2007 when
the main well shut down.
In light of the sustainability movement and increasing
awareness of its importance,
SJSU has worked to implement
practices toward sustainability
and conservation efforts. SJSUs
main well and pump involve two
candidates for optimization
water and energy. SJSU has
been putting efforts to examine
the efficiency of the water distribution
system. In 2008, water demand analysis
and master plan was prepared. During
March 2011, the MLK (public library)
went online with SBWR. In December
2011 the irrigation system for SJSU also
switched over to recycled water use.
The main well is equipped with
meters for the purpose of evaluation
and billing. The meters track the water
quantity (in gallons), as well as the
energy usage (in kilowatt-hours). The
main well and its pump are isolated
from any other water and energy consumers within the enclosure; therefore,
all readings are pure reflection of the
demand placed on the well and pump,
and not on other extraneous sources.
This relationship will enable authors to
analyze relationship between water and
energy usage. The meters accumulate
RESULTS
In an attempt to find a correlation
between the water use of the main well
and energy use at the pump, time series
of two variables (November 2006
November 2011) are plotted (Figures 2
and 3). It is evident that two resources
are closely related by similar rises and
falls through five years of data. The
more demand placed on main well, the
more energy it is consuming.
Main well was shut down during
November 2007 to December 2008
(which shows zero values), during
which time SJSU met all of its water
demand using SJWC. Both water
and energy consumption had positive trends from 2006 until the end of
2007, when the main well was shut
down. In December 2008, the main well
came back online and both the energy
and water consumptions have shown
negative trends since then. The trends,
however, have different slope values
(Figures 2 and 3). Authors also plotted
the relationship between water demand
versus energy use (Figure 4). It is seen
that they have linear relationships.
ANALYSIS OF DATA AND DISCUSSIONS

Water distribution systems are designed
for wide spectrum of consumers and
facilities including commercial, industrial, residential, and firefighting.
Hanemann (2007) analyzed urban water
use in Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California and found out that
the breakdowns are residential (66.7%),
commercial (16.9%), industrial (5.6%),
public uses (3.6%), fire-fighting and line
cleaning (2.6%), and losses and errors

(4.6%). Each category of consumers
and facilities has constituent factors
that make up its demand/consumption behaviors. Several of these factors
overlap one another, while others are
unique to specific categories and/or
cases within the categories.
Marella (1992) describes many possible factors contributing to variations
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in water demand behavior for different

categories. Population and occupancy
will have a large effect on most systems
demands. It is obvious that the number
of people utilizing a water distribution
system have a direct and positive correlation to the amount of water consumed. An areas climate will also impact
the amount of water consumed. Higher
temperatures tend to have a direct
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data, and are recorded every month.

Water consumption data is available dating back to January 2001, while data for
the energy consumption only dates back
to November of 2006. In section 5, trend
for water and energy use are plotted for
analyzing possible correlations between
the water and energy consumption.
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GUEST | ANGELA R. RUBERTO, JUNESEOK LEE, AND ADAM BAYER
REFERENCES
Biehl, William H., and Julie A. Inman.
Energy Optimization for Water
Systems. Journal American Water
Works Association 102.6 (2010):
5055. Print.
Boulos, Paul F., and Christopher M. Bros,
Assessing the Carbon Footprint
of Water Supply and Distribution
Systems. Journal American Water
Works Association 102.11 (2010):
4754. Print.
Hanemann, W. Michael. Determinants
of Urban Water Use. UC Berkeley.
2007. Accessed June 21, 2012.
http://are.berkeley.edu/courses/
EEP162/spring2007/documents/hanemannDeterminantsUrbanWater.pdf.
Krebs, Martha. Water-Related Energy
Use in California. Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife,
Public Interest Energy Research
Program, California Energy Commission. 2007.
Marella, Richard L. Factors That Affect
Public-Supply Water Use in Florida,
with a Section on Projected Water
Use to the Year 2020. US Geological
Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 91-4123. Tallahassee,
FL, 1992. Accessed June 19, 2012.
http://fl.water.usgs.gov/PDF_files/
wri91_4123_marella.pdf.
Pelli, T., and H. U. Hitz.
Energy Indicators
and Savings in Water
Supply. Journal
American Water
Works Association
(2000): 5562. Print.
Tanverakul, Stephanie
and Juneseok Lee.
Historical Review of
US Water Demand.
Paper presented at
the ASCE EWRI
World Environmental and Water
Resources Congress
Conference Proceedings, Albuquerque,
NM, 2012.
positive correlation, while the volume

of precipitation has an inverse relation
water demand.
Public attitudes about water conservation (including passive conservation,
active conservation, and pure effects
of price effects) and the availability of
alternative water-supply sources, such
as reclaimed, recycled, and desalinated,
also play important roles on the demand
placed on water distribution systems.
Links to socioeconomic factors such as
income and type of housing, as well as
water-pricing practices and rate structures within the system are evident. It is
quite challenging to isolate each factor,

but they certainly have combined influence on water use (Tanverakul and
Lee 2012).
Typically, public universities including SJSU have more dramatic shifts in
water demand throughout the year than
many other facilities due to genetic
fluctuation in available users. During
the Fall (September to December) and
Spring (January to May) Semesters, student housing is occupied and assumed
at full capacity, and enrollment and
staffing are at their maximums. During
the winter months (mid-December to
Monthly Temp and Precipt Trends
Figure 5. Monthly temperature and precipitation in San Jose
Water and Energy Monthly Averages
Figure 6. Monthly averages of water and energy readings from November of 2006 to present
mid-January), abbreviated classes are

offered, but staffing, enrollment, and student living is at a minimum. The winter
months are also those requiring the least
irrigation, and a higher potential for precipitation. It is noted that San Joses wet
weather starts from October to February followed by dry spell (Figure 5). The
summer (May to August) also offers
abbreviated classes, and while the enrollment and staffing are generally higher
than during the winter, the number of
users is dramatically lower than during
either the spring or fall semesters. Summer in San Jose has less precipitation
and more irrigation requirement than
any other time in the year (Figure 5).
Averages of water and energy
consumption (20062011) are illustrated
in Figure 6. It is observed that the water
consumption is at absolute minimum
during month 1 (January). This corresponds to winter weather, little or
no irrigation requirements, and very
low enrollment compared to the rest of
the year. The water consumption then
increases almost linearly until May.
This corresponds to increasing irrigation requirements due to the changing
season, as well as enrollment increasing
for the spring semester, and some of
the highest attendance levels by May,
arguably during the final stretch of
the semester and finals. Following the
peak in May, the water consumption
decreases in June after the semester has
let out, and gradually increases until
September where the absolute maximum
lies. The increase from June to September is indicative of the weather heating
up and irrigation requirements increasing throughout the summer. Finally, in
September, the occupancy spikes as the
fall semester begins and high irrigation
requirements are still present. Lastly,
the water consumption decreases from
September through December as the
weather cools, the student attendance
declines slightly, and irrigation requirements dwindle for the winter.
As expected, the energy profile of
the pump for a year has similar trends.
The exception is that the energy demand
does not experience the same drop off
after month five (May) when the Spring
Semester finishes. A possible explanation
Table 2.
Cost Savings Realized From Decrease in
Consumption Between 2009 and 2011
YEAR
ENERGY (KWH)
WATER (CCF)
2009
302,690
196,968
2010
276,890
195,215
2011
239,200
189,392
63,490
7,576
$=
$0.135/kWh
$2.24/CCF
$=
$8,571.15
$16,970.24
Total Savings:
$25,541.39
for this is that the water fluctuation is

due largely to changing irrigation requirements. The irrigation system within the
water distribution supply requires relatively little energy (all of the irrigation has
relatively low elevation and not as much
water is requiring the energy intensive
factor, i.e., pumping to the higher levels of
the taller buildings), it will not have a significant decrease at this time. The energy
profile instead gradually climbs from
January to September, and then decreases
until December.
The difference between water and
energy use trend is because most of this
water usage is due to irrigation in the
summer months, despite having lower
campus occupancy, and pumping water
for the irrigation system has a lower
energy requirement than that necessary
for users such as students and faculty
(relatively higher buildings).
ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
The total volume of water (in cubic
meters) and total energy (in kilowatthours) consumed by the main well at
SJSU has decreased since 2008 (Figure
2 and 3). These savings should due to
retrofitting aerators across campus, sustainability movement at SJSU, etc. These
reductions may provide an opportunity
to examine the economical savings that
may be realized through further optimization, sustainability, and conservation.
Table 2 summarizes the cost savings realized from decrease in water and energy
consumption between 2009 and 2011.

It is estimated that about $25,541 were
saved in water and energy cost.
CONCLUSION
Conservation and sustainability of
natural resources and environment is
one of the most important issues now.
Authors believe that public education
sector should implement these concepts
not only into their classroom education
but also everyday life. Lowering water
consumption within water distribution
systems not only aids in the sustainability of water, but also decreases energy
consumption, which helps to lessen
environmental impact from greenhouse
gas emissions. It was also observed that
both of these reductions can lessen the
financial burden incurred.
With available datasets (20062011)
at SJSU, the trends of both water and
energy consumption were analyzed.
Clearly, common factors including student enrollment, precipitation, evaporation and temperature have impact
on water demand. Specific behaviors
in school settings demand variations
were observed: semester based fluctuations that impact enrollment, housing
occupancy, and facility use. Consumption of both water and energy is lowest
during the winter months when irrigation requirements and user occupancy is
at its lowest and is higher the rest of the
year. Water usage experiences peaks in
May and in September, due to increases
in irrigation requirements and highest
occupancy.
The framework developed in this
research will be a good contribution
to the water-energy nexus planning in
University settings and research on the
interdisciplinary theme of water distribution and urban sustainability. This
project demonstrates an integration of
the economic benefits and environmental sustainability. WE
Angela R. Ruberto is an Undergraduate
research assistant, Juneseok Lee
is an assistant professor, Civil and
Environmental Engineering, and
Adam Bayer is the director of Facility
Development and Operations for San Jose
State University.
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to include aeration and mixing systems, ladders and handrails, exterior piping, and
other appurtenances as required. Welded steel tanks offer flexibility in design, exterior
painting options, and future modifications. Fisher Tank Companys turnkey tank solutions
provide decades of safe, reliable performance with minimal maintenance costs.
www.fishertank.com
MASTER METER
The Octave Ultrasonic Meter represents a new approach to comprehensive flow
management and accountability. Now available in 2 to 10 inches, this highly
advanced ultrasonic meter is an excellent alternative to mechanical compound,
single-jet, and turbine meters with no moving parts to ensure optimum revenue
without waning performance over time. Octave excels at maintaining sustained
accuracy for the life of the meter while providing smart AMR capabilities to bring
the latest in ultrasonic metering technology.
www.mastermeter.com
ROMAC INDUSTRIES INC.

Romac introduces the Alpha, a wide-range, ductile iron coupling that also provides
restraint. The Romac Alpha is one piece and accommodates most common pipe
materials. With two torque-off bolts on top, Alpha installs in about three minutes
without having to use a torque wrench. Alphas wide range covers ductile iron
through IPS PVC pipe diameters. Alpha is manufactured in the US, and has a maximum working pressure of 350 psi.
www.romac.com
RAIN BIRD
CAPSTONE METERING
Capstone Metering is a Texas-based technology company
that produces water meters and software applications that
allow utilities to manage water as never before. Capstone is
now deploying the IntelliH2O, the intelligent wireless water
meter with 1) an integrated ball valve for on/off control, 2)
modular 2-way wireless communications design, 3) 98.5%+
measuring accuracy, 4) integrated pressure sensing/temperature sensing, and 5) an integrated rechargeable battery
system where the meter is self-powered by the water flow.
www.intellih2o.com
Rain Birds new ESP-Me modular controller easily expands from four up to 22 stations by simply installing optional three- or six-station modules. Because of its expandability, the ESP-Me can control both
residential and light commercial irrigation systems. It offers a number of useful features that save time,
water, and money, such as the Delay Watering and Seasonal Adjust by Program features, as well as a
Total Run Time Calculator that automatically tallies up the total time a program will run.
http://ESPMeNews.rainbird.com
Water Efficiencys ShowCase is based on information

supplied by manufacturers. Some manufacturers did not
respond to requests for information. Publication of materials
received is subject to editing and space availability.
ShowCase
ACLARA
The Ultra Mag flow meter manufactured by McCrometer is an advanced, leading-edge electromagnetic meter designed for the specific needs of industrial and water and wastewater markets. This field-proven, high-performance meter offers high accuracy over a wide flow range.
Its unique NSF-approved UltraLiner provides superior electrical insulation, as well as excellent
protection against corrosion and abrasion. The Ultra Mag is the flow meter of choice for harsh
environments requiring a stable and reliable full bore flow meter.
www.mccrometer.com
Aclaras consumer-engagement for water presents current and historical

data to customers in easy-to-understand ways that help them understand how and when they use water, and make it easy to conserve
and save money. Real-time data comes directly from the utilitys AMI
system and can help customers identify periods of high and low usage.
Cost and consumption information for the current billing period enables
consumers to make important changes to consumption habits to reduce
costs. When correlated with temperature data, daily usage graphs provide a more complete picture of how weather impacts water use; hourly
graphs explain how specific activities affect water costs in any given
day; and monthly graphs show usage trends throughout the year.
www.aclaratech.com
EXCELERON SOFTWARE
UNITED TANK SYSTEMS
Exceleron Softwares Prepaid Account Management System (PAMS) is a patented, Web-based,

hosted solution that fully integrates with existing CIS and AMI systems, with no hardware
requirements. More than 75 water, gas, and electric service providers are using PAMS to
offer consumers an alternative to traditional billing systems. Prepaid accounts eliminate
high deposits, late fees, and disconnection fees, while reducing write-offs and bad debt.
Consumers choose the amount and frequency of payments, accessing their account information and consumption history via phone, text messaging, and the MyUsage Web interface.
www.exceleron.com
Since 1981, United Tank Systems designed, manufactured, and constructed

stainless steel, epoxy-coated, and glass-fused-to-steel bolted tanks and
silos worldwide. The company offers compatible roofs, tank accessories,
water-processors, and storage of liquids, solids and semi-solids with
capacities from 10,000 to 15 million gallons. United Tank Systems provides
factory authorized service and conscientious erection crews committed to
quality in every detail.
www.unitedtanksystems.com
MCCROMETER
PROCESS SOLUTIONS
CRANE PUMPS & SYSTEMS
Barnes Solids Handling Pumps are the reliable, clog-free solution for increasingly challenging waste streams. The impellers are engineered for outstanding clogging resistance providing true pumping efficiency. The plug-n-play
technology reduces maintenance with the ability to change pumps without
pulling and rethreading the cord through the conduit. These wet-well pumps
utilize a combination of Inverter Duty rated motors, ideal for variable speed
operations and an epoxy coating system providing outstanding corrosion
resistance. The SH Series is available in 3- through 8-inch discharge sizes with
motors from 2 to 60 hp.
www.cranepumps.com
The Tank Shark reservoir mixing system is easily installed through the hatch without
electrical or mechanical parts in the reservoir. A combination of features can be
provided to meet water quality needs: mixing, analysis and sampling, dosing,
aerating, and SCADA compatibility. The Tank Shark provides a low-cost solution
for temperature stratification, stagnation, residual degradation, water age, THM
reduction, nitrification, and freezing.
www.4psi.net
BIRDNEST SERVICES INC.

BirdNest provides an application that loads on iPhones, iPads, and
Android smart phones and tablets. Data entered by field workers is sent
electronically to a central, secure database, replacing paper and pencil log
sheets, clipboards, notebooks, or inspection forms. Data is accessed through
the Internet where customers use built-in tools for reports and analytics.
There is no hardware to buy or software to install since BirdNest uses the
customers existing phones and Web browsers. BirdNest is easy to deploy,
and customers enjoy value the day they start the service.
www.birdnest.com
ADEDGE TECHNOLOGIES
WaterPOD containerized treatment units from AdEdge Water Technologies have been
developed to meet the growing US and international demand for small-footprint,
cost-effective treatment installations. The fully integrated, pre-engineered, prewired
packaged water treatment solution combines system performance with economy.
WaterPod modular enclosures contain one of AdEdges packaged units treating
a variety of contaminants including arsenic, iron, manganese, uranium, radium,
nitrates, and TDS, among others for drinking water, remediation, or industrial/
commercial applications. The unit can include multiple customizable options based
on flow and contaminants.
www.adedgetechnologies.com
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Advertisers Index
COMPANY
WEBSITE
PAGE
Aclara . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.aclaratech.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 4

AdEdge Technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.adedgetechnologies.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
American Water Works Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.awwa.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
ASC Building Products. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.ascbp.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Badger Meter Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.badgermeter.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Burke Environmental Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.burkeind.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Calgon Carbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.calgoncarbon.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
EWRI - Environmental & Water Resources Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.asce.org/ewri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
FlowWorks Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.flowworks.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Hobas Pipe USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.hobaspipe.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Master Meter Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.mastermeter.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 2
National Rural Water Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.nrwa.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cover 3
Plast-O-Matic Valves Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.plastomatic.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Rugid Computer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.rugidcomputer.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Sensus Metering Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.sensus.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Sontek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.sontek.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Southern Nevada Water Authority (LV Water District) . . . . . . . . . . . . www.snwa.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Tadiran Batteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.tadiranbat.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Toro Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.toro.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Underground Solutions Inc.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . www.undergroundsolutions.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Learn & Earn with Forester U

Introduction to SMART Irrigation
Judith Benson, EPA WaterSense 2010 Irrigation Partner of the Year
President, Clear Water Products and Services, Inc.
Thursday, May 30 1 PDH / 0.1 CEU
Get to the root of your efciency and landscape problems with SMART irrigation. Join EPA WaterSense
2010 Irrigation Partner of the Year, Judith Benson, to explore the concepts, components, and controllers
behind SMART Irrigation and how these advanced controls and water saving components can improve
your organizations water-energy efciency, landscaping and public spaces, and savings. Join us for a
discussion of: ET/ weather-based controllers, soil moisture sensors, remote access and system automation, advantages and known issues, successful rebate programs, and available certications.
5 Steps to Creating a Successful

Public Outreach Campaign
Erica Mahgerefteh, Strategic Director, S. Groner Associates
Tuesday, May 7 1 PDH / 0.1 CEU
Change starts with people. Whether your focus is stormwater pollution, energy conservation, pavement restoration, or recycling, a successful public outreach campaign resonates with your target
audience and leads to long-lasting behavior change. Join Erica Mahgerefteh of SGA to explore a
proven 5-step approach to crafting a successful outreach campaign based on real-world examples
of the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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Ratepayersor
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ISTOCK.COM/CHUVIPRO
Data on residential water

usage allows utilities
to transform service and
tame consumption.
By David Engle
ts interesting, observes Ian MacLeod of Master

Meter Inc. (Mansfield, TX), to look at how AMI
[Advanced Metering Infrastructure] and the sharing of utility information with users can affect a
behavioral change.
To back this up, he cites a three-year study on the psychology of ratepayer conservation, conducted at the Coachella
Valley Water District (CVWD) in California and completed in
2011. Results were almost shocking, in terms of how dramatically peoples water usage was altered when they understood that they were being watched, if you will, and that that
information was shared with them to further empower their
consumption behavior, says MacLeod, Master Meters vice

president of marketing. CVWD uses Master Meter equipment
for its mobile and AMI meter data collection.
Although the voluminous info pumped out by automated
smart meter networks brings along a familiar package of benefits,
MacLeod suggests that the greatest benefit is turning out to be a
relative newcomer: from a customer service standpoint . . . these
portals that are being created to share information with ratepayers to encourage them to use water more wisely and to understand what they could do with water budgeting, for example.
Such systems are empowering people . . . by letting them
know periodicallyduring the course of a monthhow much
water theyre using, or what their bill is shaping up to be. And

theyre actually showing you how much water youre using,
relative to other homeowners in the area.
He goes on to describe how these newest-generation
customer service tools are ingeniously tapping into customers
social consciences, in a good waylike pitting you against
your neighborsto help heavy water users avoid the stigma
of being profligate squanderers of the community aquifer.
The online presentation of usage data in near-real-time also
help some consumers overcome an occasional kind of psychological denial in which they tell themselves I dont use
all that much water!when, in fact, they use a measurably
greater amount than their neighbors and peers. The friendly
Web-based customer interface then gently proceeds to let
such people know, with graphics and daily or hourly numbers,
exactly how much they use, relative to others. Usage is sometimes even broken down into categories like lawn sprinkling or
interior water.
MacLeod continues: These newer ways that AMI, combined with meter data management [MDM], is being used,
is really shaping up to control consumer behavior and be a
powerful conservation program.
The research at CVWD is described in a report called
Time-of-Use Water Meter Effects on Customer Water Use,
California Energy Commission, PIER Program, CEC-5002011-023, by Lon House.
Whats also quite curious, and perhaps even shocking,
about state-funded water conservation effortsat least in
southern Californiais that the major goal, in terms of financial
savings benefits, doesnt concern water so much as the very high
electricity costs associated with moving and treating it.
In the voluntary research project, a very small sample 52
residential ratepayerswhen provided with the water usage
insights that MacLeod describesreadily slashed their
on-peak water usage more than 50%. On-peak here
refers to peak electric power rates (noon to 6 p.m.),
which are, of course, much higher per kilowatt-hour
than off-peak.
In terms of overall, round-the-clock water consumption,
the experimental group used 17% less than the control.
If all ratepayers would follow this samples lead, CVWDs
peak electrical demand would fall by 1,340,000 kWh and 3
MW or more, and total electrical usage by over 1,668,000 kWh
a year, the report states.
The project had the goal of trying to shift peoples water
consumption behavior, and participants were paid $25
monthly for taking part, but otherwise, they received no
behavioral rewards. They got the point about shifting and
conserving, more-or-less on their own.
RICH DATA YIELDS THESE FOUR MAJOR SERVICE IMPACTS
Well return to the novelty of finely shaping customer behavior in a moment; but first, it will be helpful to review the wellknown effects that the expansion of data received from automatic meter reading (AMR)/AMI systems will likely bring to
bear on customer service improvement. The following ones,
reported by managers at two recent rural AMI projects (in
Weatherford, OK; and Olathe, KS) are being realized almost
universally.
First, because meters no longer need to be read in person,

former readers quite often become even more valuable by reassignment to other tasks. This happened in both locales.
Weatherfords chief financial officer Tony Davenport
reports that, Our meter readers . . . are now freed to work on
the water and sewer infrastructure. The City (which has about
5,000 meters) never seriously considered using AMI as a way
to cut payroll, he adds.
Likewise in Olathe (about 35,000 meters), a few meter
readers voluntarily retired after the AMI project, but most
were given new jobs in customer service to do tasks which, as
water distribution manager Tonya Roberts says, were previously being neglected due to a chronic staff time shortage.
These days, post-AMI, the department is getting caught up on
long-delayed secondary maintenance, like meter pits, valves,
and hydrant, she says.
And theres also an expanded leak-detection effort, she
adds, in which former meter readers are among those who
now survey water lines to chase down leaks, before they turn
into full blown breaks.
This proactive approach also provides earlier lead times
for scheduling repairs and letting customers know about possible service interruption, and the workflow is organized more
efficiently.
A second major impact and benefit from AMI naturally
transforms billing and meter data management. Roberts
explains that, in Olathe, We don't have to estimate bills
anymore, and . . . dont have to schedule meter reading visits
to enter locked buildings and meter sites. The same goes with
leak detection visits.
Were not bothering those customers anymore, trying to
meet with them, says Roberts, as the AMI data can usually
pinpoint leak locations remotely.
For customer service line staff, theres almost always
a major transition to undergo when the AMI data torrent
arrives. Roberts recounts that Perhaps the largest piece of this
was working with customer service so they know and understand what the data means and how to access the information
that they need, when they have a customer on the line.
Making this transition required tight coordination
between Olathes IT team and the AMI and meter vendor
Sensus, until data was moving smoothly from MDM to billing
and back again. As prepared as we thought we were, recalls
Roberts, it was still a little bit overwhelming, but the department assigned a person to oversee it, and the conversion went
fairly smoothly.
Her customer service data isnt tied to the hourly info that
is pouring into the billing department. This certainly helps by
simplifying content: customer service staff simply log in to a
service software module. Yet the voluminous granular data is
on hand if needed, to help department managers tackle issues
like peak demand dynamics in specific areas, tracking of water
losses, and detecting backflow or possible cross-connects.
A kind of classic AMI benefit that all customer service
departments will experience is the ability to respond in detail to
customers challenges of high bills. Having such real data, says
Roberts, makes it easier to explain to them and show them
where all that water went, and gives customers specific timeframes when their usage was high. Thats been the largest help
to us, she says.

Davenport tells a similar tale of
transformation in Weatherford, where
theyve implemented a new customer
engagement Web portal.
Previously, he says, We couldnt
get any details . . . if customers came in
and said I never used this water. Now
we can go back, look at each day, and
tell them, At six a.m. you were using [so
many gallons].
Theres an overnight usage report
every day, he notes, and customers can

access data directly, through the Web.
This portal actually nips many complaints
in the bud, and some customers, after
experiencing the rich content, have even
visited the office and told us that it has
helped them manage their water usage,
especially people who have new sprinkler
systems. They can look and see, Hey its
using a lot more water than I thought it
was using during this time period.
A third major benefit is reflected in
Harvesting the Benets

of Combined Heat and
Power (CHP)
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Lectrus is a leading electrical systems integrator and custom metal

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customer gratitude whenever the AMI

detects a water leak on their side of the
meter, and enables prompt notification
that saves a potentially nasty expense.
Probably every AMI-equipped agency
has such stories to tell. In Olathe, one
ratepayer had a garden house that was
running several days. We called them,
remembers Roberts. They were pretty
adamant that they didnt have anything
going on. So we went out and talked to
them, we looked around, and found the
hose going . . . they were just thrilled
that we were able to find that. . . .
Davenports example tells of a
neighbors house which suffered an inside
leak while the owner was gone for the
weekend. The citys AMI flagged it early
so it could be stopped. Later, the neighbor wanted to know how much had been
lost and easily found out the volume, and
when, by logging into the portal.
This direct access interaction is the
fourth big impact, then, and, as MacLeod
noted above, is surely the most dramatic.
For one thing, customer engagement will tend to shift from the telephone and service-call conversation to
a richer, deeper two-way Web experience. Customer can mine all kinds of
pertinent data, on demand (varying
with the particular system, of course).
This can be displayed in daily, and even
hourly, increments. And, as research
has clearly shown, it spurs conservation
and better management. In time, many
customers tend to become proactive and
learn to budget their usage and perhaps set threshold alerts that will notify
them about approaching volume levels.
Theyll easily monitor water consumption, compare current usage to previous
periods, configure individual alerts, and
set budget and water conservation goals.
Olathes interface doesnt exist yet,
but completion is due by late 2013.
Weatherfords is now up-and-running.
Davenport already considers it our
biggest customer service. Users can log
in and access data and watch numbers
grow down to increments of every
half-hour.
They can get graphs showing
usage on multiple timeframes, he says.
Thats the main thing most of them
want to see. He adds that the software is
still evolving and improving.
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Although batteries are wrongly thought

to be at fault for early Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) blowouts,
the fact is that by themselves theyre
almost never to blame for signal failures,
except for the occasional bad batch
that may come in manufacturing, notes
Sol Jacobs, vice president and general
manager of Tadiran Batteries in Lake
Success, NY. Tadiran sells to almost all
water meter vendors.
In fact, the existence of long-lived
electronic water meters is only made
possible by steady and remarkable
improvement of low-self discharge
batteries, Jacobs says. Over the past 20
years their lifespans have lengthened
progressively from a self-discharge rate
of about 2 1/2% per year (yielding a fiveyear life) to a current discharge rate of
only 0.75% (about 40 years!).
Manufacturing such low-discharge
batteries is a technically difficult, complex, and specialized process, Jacobs
explains. Recent global entrants into
the market do not possess the sufficient
automation or high product-control
standards needed to achieve adequate
reliability, he adds. This too can lead to
system failures. For example, in the case
of the elsewhere-mentioned major AMI
firm that is now going out of business,
the firm reportedly suffered some of its
problems because it had installed very
cheap batteries made overseas, which
predictably failed by the hundreds, says
Jacobs.
A second source of battery-related
AMI problems stems from the difficulty
in transitioning from AMI at electric utilities, to AMI for water. AMI for electric
companies never needed batteries:
power came from the utility electric current, working in the dry indoors.
But for water districts, their meters
went into wet, belowground, covered
settings. Designing the electronics and
mating the right direct current (DC)
power plant for surviving many years
2013 the service was being piloted and

phased-in at seven sites in California,
e.g., East Bay Municipal Utility District,
Irvine Ranch Water District, and the
cities of Davis, Roseville, and Newport
Beach; it's offered nationwide.
What Yolles has sought to do with
WaterSmart, he says, is to create a
multichannel platform around behavior
change, the behavior being to use less
water and be more aware of it.
How WaterSmart accomplishes
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for them was, initially, something of

a trial-and-error process. Engineers
might easily miscalculate in their specs,
due to many unknowns and variables;
for example, batteries perform a bit
differently depending on ambient
temperature or moisture. Jacobs notes
that several first-generation AMI makers
fielded meter and transmitter products,
only to return and confess their design
mistakes to him.
Tadiran seeks to fend-off such problems by requiring engineers to submit
detailed spec sheets so that they will
not be sold an inappropriate battery,
Jacobs says.
A third rough patch was the radical paradigm-shift that occurred for
vendors and water departments alike,
when switching from AMR (automatic
meter reading, usually AMIs immediate
predecessors) to the fixed network. The
batteries that first powered AMR meters
were typically checked only once a
month, at close range; then, suddenly
along came AMI, with signals being
battery-boosted for miles. The polling
pulse frequency leapt to several times
daily, even hourly. To make this work,
batteries and registers had to accomplish a sleep mode in microamps,
and wakeup in the couple-hundred
miliampere range. The demand for
exponentially higher numbers of readings also necessitated bigger batteries, which had to be encapsulated to
protect delicate electronics against the
moisture.
In summing up, Jacobs notes that
some agencies have complained about
meters being designed with nonreplaceable batteries. This makes them
costlier to replace. In response, he
points out that the battery, if properly
managed, will usually outlast the meter,
and hence the warranty life of twenty
years is set to coincide with the simultaneous and more-or-less unavoidable
replacement timeline for a new meter.
NEIGHBOR VERSUS NEIGHBOR FOR FRIENDLY,

COMPARATIVE CONSERVATION
Interactive customer engagement is
definitely the hot number these days, and
the remainder of our report will show
some of the exciting directions in which
developers are going with their products.
Peter Yolles, founder and CEO of
WaterSmart Software in San Francisco,
CA, has developed a Web customer
interface platform, which he introduced
to water utilities in 2011. As of mid-
day @
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Learn from the masters online, in real-time, without the hassle of travel.
this, he says, is by making private usage of water something of a

public event: Information about your consumption and that of
your neighbors is shared openly, as norms (without disclosing identities, of course). This strategy creates a social context
around the data, so its not just how much water people use, but
how a customer compares to others just like them. This social
norm becomes a motivator and yardstick for changing behavior.
Multichannel refers to the multitude of ways that consumers can receive messages about their comparative water
use, including Home Water Reports by print and by e-mail, the
online WaterInsight portal, and through their mobile devices.
Bits of data include things like house occupancy (highly
correlated with usage), lawn footage (irrigation) appliance flow
rates, house construction date, swimming pool size, hot tub(s),
current and past actual water consumption, and so on.
What each participating utility ratepayer (or customer)
receives out of this assemblage is a home water report, consisting
largely of comparative bar charts. Reports are distributed periodically throughout the water service area, by Web or other means
(currently optimized for smartphones and tablets), monthly or
bimonthly, depending on the billing period.
And whats perhaps most unique and innovative, Yolles
notes: reports offer personalized recommendations for each
household to do, for each billing period.
Does this approach actually change behavior?
Yolles describes a recent experimental setup at the City of
Cotati to find out. Metered customers were divided into roughly
two halves; one was given WaterSmart reports, and the other half
were left in the dark without them. Result: the half who received
reports reduced their residential water demand by about 5%
over a one-year period, compared to the other half. And 70% of
the WaterSmart-enabled homes reduced their water demand by
some significant amount, versus their previous usage.
A third experimental result was a tripled level of customer
engagement; this is defined by the relative number of requests
for water conservation programs.
Asked why he thinks people changed their consumption,
Yolles offers three factors.
First: social comparisonseeing how they measure up to
other homes like theirs, he says. In Cotati the highest percentage of water usage reductions came from homes that had been
the highest consumers; thanks to WaterSmart they realized their
excesses. This kind of undesirable conspicuous consumption
motivates profligates, says Yolles, to try to keep up with the
Jones in an opposite sense by consuming less.
A second factor, he believes, is WaterSmarts personalizing
interface. The customer is addressed by name whenever receiving information, he notes, and again gets personalized specific
suggestions and recommendations they might take to save
water, tailored according to their circumstances.
Yolles points out that, because the assemblage of report
data is drawn from such a diversity of sources, strictly speaking it is not at all dependent on daily or hourly AMI readings or
smart meters. In fact, a utility or customer could gain significant
Transitioning to AMI
Aclaras David Steidtmann readily concedes that whats most
critical for industry vendors to realize is that each of the nations
thousands of water department is unique. Hence, each needs
a truly customized design. System engineers will surely run
into trouble if they blithely follow a simplistic, template-driven,
one-size-fits-all approach, he says.
This was especially true in early AMI designs for electric utilities, from which Aclara gleaned invaluable lessons. We have
since developed a process of being very deliberate and careful
about understanding as much as we can about the specific
environment, prior to installation, he says.
A major element here involves shaping client expectations.
Just as every water system is unique, so, too, are the perceptions of each individual who participates in the AMI enterprise,
both on the client and vendor sides alike.
So, for example, rather than dialoging in nebulous terms
about billing data or leak detection or other AMI features,
he says, its crucial to prepare each involved participant with
an accurate and specific understanding of how AMI works
and what it does or does not do over time and under varying
conditions.
Moreover, these clarifying discussions must continue over
several years, he says. AMI implementation itself often takes
two, three, or more years to complete. Over this time, staff-
ing may be reshuffled, and technologies and product features

evolve. Personal expectations must thus be reset periodically.
Youre sort of constantly in a feedback loop with the utility, says Steidtmann, and vendors need to emphasize education and knowledge transfer for them.
For example, the agencys business office staff will typically
face something of a shock, and usually requires major adjustments, once the AMI is turned on and a flood of data gushes
forth with the same amount coming in just one month that
they used to get in 15 years. . . . They will need to use a sophisticated, comprehensive set of data processing tools, data storage
tools, and meter data management and analytics tools,
he says.
Aclara senior vice president Karen Flathers sums up: What
people need to realize about these systems is theyre kind of a
living, breathing thing. You dont just put them in and expect
them to keep going on their own. You have to monitor them
daily. MTUs [meter transmission units] fail . . . new frequencies
come in and start causing interference. . . . You have to make
adjustments. So, weve put in place a system that checks the
networks health and does continuous system monitoring.
Theres no silver bullet. Its hard work. Its doing a detailed
plan, hashing it out, fighting it out, talking about it every week,
and holding each other accountable to advancing the plan.
guidance with only a conventional monthly or even quarterly

meter-read. The system provides feedback incentive to change
behavior, even if its less frequent, he explains, because the strategy emphasizes social norms and personalization. More frequent
readings are helpful, but not necessary.
How about the appeal of WaterSmart for utilities where
conservation isnt so crucial?
One answer Yolles offers is that it is proven to increase customer satisfaction: in the Cotati study the percentage of respondents saying they were very satisfied with their water service
was double that of the control group.
WaterSmart also isnt expensive: A utility pays only between
five and ten dollars per meter per year.
But is there such a thing as a payback? This question actually
raises the intriguing matter of why any utility would want to
reduce water consumption, and thereby, logically, lose revenue.
Actually, well-informed utilities understand that reducing consumption also saves on costs, and this easily offsets the
diminishing impact on revenue.
Yolles points out, Its cheaper to save an acre-foot of
water than to buy an acre foot of water, and utilities also
might save on wastewater treatment costs and by deferring
capital projects, he adds.
U2YOU: ON THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
Very similar points about the less-obvious, but sizeable,
financial value of water conservation for utilities are offered

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by Graham Symmonds of Global Water Resources (GWR),

in Phoenix, AZ. GWR is a utility holding company that has
likewise developed one of these new wave customer engagement portals. It too is largely devoted to saving water.
Symmonds, who is GWRs senior vice president of regulatory affairs and compliance and chief technology officer,
argues conservation from a financial perspective. Its sort of
the ultimate paradox of utility operations, he says, especially
for GWR or any utility that is investor-owned.
Yes, the more water saved, the lower the revenues. But
its not like a normal business that encourages consumption,
he says. And some great things end up happening when you
reduce consumption. For example, Youre actually saving
on the cost of adding new infrastructure. A 20% reduction in
demand means 20% of the capacity in your delivery system is
saved for new growth.
Secondly, by reducing the demand flow, you reduce the
velocity that you have to provide, which reduces the pressure
that you have to operate that system, which will ultimately
reduce the number of leaks and bursts you have in distribution
systems, he says.
Also, in practice serious utility water conservation efforts
are generally accompanied by extensive re-metering. Having more income via this more accurate equipment will more
than compensate for the reductions as people learn to tighten
control of irrigation.
GWR began adding AMI to the 16 or so water utilities
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Paul Crabtree, P.E., CNU-A, Crabtree Group Inc.
it owns, since the early days (ca. 2005). Over the years, the
company readily saw the need for a customer information
platform to handle the massively increased density of data
that was coming across the networks. Thus there evolved
GWRs internal system, dubbed U2You. The U here
stands for the utility as it shares information to you, the
ratepayer. The latter sign up to the interface voluntarily;
to date about 2,000, or 20% of GWRs total base, log on to
U2You regularly.
Next, about four years ago GWR spun-off a U2You
Web-hosted product that it calls Fathom to offer to other
utilities; to date, a dozen or so agencies have signed up.
As Symmonds describes U2You and Fathom conceptually, they use what we call a geospatial backbone that
provides water consumers who visit their personal accounts
a geotemporal reference to their water use, meaning, when
and for what purposes. The geospatial element, he adds,
gives a context to their usage, with comparison to their
street, their neighborhood, and their city.
Raised awareness about consumption results in reducing overall usage by 10% to 18%, just by providing people
as near to real-time information as you can get, says Symmonds. Based on a sampling, hes found that regular U2Youers use about 20% to 30% less water than other customers.
In assessing the psychology of the interactive portal
experience, and why it works, Symmonds believes that the
immediacy of usage feedback is key.
Under a standard monthly or bimonthly billing cycle,

the feedback being given by any given statement is so
delayed, you really cant connect the readings with your
actions, he says, because the actions occurred weeks before
any bill is eyeballed. But a U2You or Fathom user can log on
and sign up for push alerts and very quick usage notifications, via text message and e-mails, so you have almost an
instantaneous assessment of what it is or how youre using
water, he says.
System users also tend to generate far fewer billing complaints and inquiries. GWR data inputs are refreshed hourly;
at an extreme, they could be done every 15 minutes.
As for the social norm aspect that Yolles emphasizes at
WaterSmart, Symmonds wholly agrees that, if you understand that you are the largest water user on your street, there
may be some social pressures that can help you reduce that.
The human mind likes validation and doesnt necessarily like
being an outlier, he says.
But straight-out economic incentives are steadily becoming more influential too, he believes (even where monthly
bills are still low). GWR deduced this from the way U2Youers respond more noticeably whenever figures are expressed
in net dollars, rather than gallons.
For Fathom-equipped utilities, each implementation is
customized from a menu of services. At the very high end, a
full-blown customer service option would include outsourcing GWR to do even the financing and running of a robust
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AMI, then gathering all the meter data,

doing the billing, and even the customer service. The utility would end
up just standing by to receive a share
of monthly revenues collected; the cost
thus works out to $12 to $14 per meter
per month.
Other utilities may want to use
Fathom only for the back office role,
and retain billing and customer service
for themselves. A still more basic
deployment for customer service might
cost something like $4 per meter per
month, says Symmonds. Fathom can
work with any AMI that meets its API
(application programming interface)
criteria, or with a hybrid AMR, or even
with nothing more than old-fashioned
manual monthly reads. Even longdelayed data enables a water user to at
least make simple comparisons with
other similar houses, he notes.
Scan here to share
http://gettag.mobi
COMING AHEAD
Near-term, other software firms are
reportedly on a tear to develop products that will apply sophisticated
disaggregating algorithms to customer
water usage; this will enable statistical
modeling of usage categories. Software
analysis will break down what people
are doing, water-wise, in fine detail.
Matching these models against hourly
or more refined AMI data will provide
utilities almost an x-ray view of each
homes usage. Leak detection will be
largely based on these simulations, with
high probability. And usage feedback to
customers on how they compare can be
broken down to fine granularity, function by function.
As for AMI and smart meter data
networking, Symmonds sums up by
forecasting a rosy future, Going forward, youll see AMI as a de facto norm.
From the data and technology perspective, theres actually very little difference
between AMI and AMR; one network
just happens to be fixed, the other
happens to use a car. So the costs are
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coming down that way, and the benefits

of real-time or near-real-time data are
finally being realized.
In time, he says youll see AMI
really being installed preferentially over
any other system. WE
Writer David Engle specializes in
resource management-related topics.

www.waterefficiency.net/AMR-and-AMI
Editors Correction:
In the March/April 2013 issue of Water
Efficiencythe article titled Pipe
Down and Fix It ( www.waterefficiency.
net/WE/articles/20744.aspx ) by Lori
LovelyPure Technologies is based in
Calgary, AB, Canada, not Mississouga,
ON. Water Efficiency regrets this error.
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Leaks
eventually
tell you where
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afford to wait?
A geyser caused by the rupture of a water main is a

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leaks while they are still underground. The solution
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to sample the sound waves generated by leaks along
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systems software correlates the data, pinpointing any
leaks to within a few feet.
The STAR ZoneScan solution saves time by automating the process of collecting and transmitting data
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MAY 2013

QUALITY | SCADA | IRRIGATION | AMI

May 2013, Volume 8, Number 3

New Regulations and

Getting the most power from your SCADA

Irrigation Demand Management

Cover photo: iStock.com/tfoxfoto

Water utilities and municipalities are taking a

Sales & Marketing Coordinators

Sign Up for Your Free Subscription

GO ONLINE FOR NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS, RENEWALS, OR CHANGE OF ADDRESS:

to WATER EFFICIENCY, 440 Quadrangle Drive

Get the app at

is taken to ensure accuracy, but the publishers

ext. 100, or via e-mail at forester@

Director of Education & Training

Editor's Comments Elizabeth Cutright

We Are Not Making

We must find a way to

8 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET

must wean ourselves from a tendency to use that

SCOTT N. DUFF, MCIP RPP

GEORGE KUNKEL JR., P.E.

DAVID ZOLDOSKE, EDD

NO MATTER HOW YOU INSTALL IT...

6,000 INSTALLS SAYS IT ALL!

In 2010, we saved $1.3 million

using pipe bursting instead of

PHOTO COURTESY OF GE INTELLIGENT PLATFORMS

elcome to the new era

10 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET

large), and, in the office, taming the

includes water storage tanks and pump

of those buildings gets tracked. The extensive monitoring

12 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET

So weve reduced the time involved significantly, and also

lot of energy, says Johnson. In

At any given moment, we can pull data from

All Data > In One Place > Easily

MAY 2013 WATER EFFICIENCY 13

14 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET

PHOTOS: RUGID COMPUTERS

Above: Lift station control

operator, and gives him the whole series of time-based events.

Ride With Purpose

And its one helluva good time!

Join the Herd

Join us this June for

DATA EXTRACTION POINT

WiSI all-in-one radio, data acquisition and control, self-powered device

combined with the current information

for related articles:

16 WATER EFFICIENCY WWW.WATEREFFICIENCY.NET

critically important as the security risks

PHOTOS: BREMERTON WATER TREATMENT

New Regulations and

fficials with the City of

which can cause diarrhea. Bremertons

exactly as it was advertised when officials

water. This focus is a direct result of more

Georgia served by several new private

parts-per-quadrillion basis, Zappa says.

Adsorption Ion Exchange

intelligent thinking...clean water