Smart water meter management
When utilities observe Fix a Leak Week (on March 14-20 this year), they mostly communicate outwardly to residents, informing their customers to check their faucets, toilet flappers, or garden hoses for drips, which can add up to a lot of water waste. But what if we as an industry took this opportunity to get our […]
You wouldn’t buy a typewriter in 2021, would you? Of course not, because a PC, Mac, or even your cell phone far exceeds anything you can accomplish with a typewriter. So, why stick with your old meters — which, despite having a long lifespan, accumulate more and more issues as they age — while upgrading […]
Though we’re still wrapping our heads around what happened in Texas last month, we would be remiss if we didn’t thank the many utility workers who have been working doggedly during and after the recent winter storm, Uri. These front line workers worked countless hours to not only restore water service to their communities but […]
Water loss too often gets dismissed. Yet, if you are talking to your water utility’s board of directors and 30% of your presentation wasn’t heard or seen by them, you’d stop immediately to diagnose the problem. If it was beyond your capabilities, you’d grab an expert to help solve the issue. What about water loss […]
It doesn’t matter which came first — chickens, eggs, farmers, or consumers. When water scarcity is involved, all parties are interdependent. Limiting agricultural or industrial water use in favor of residential use does a community no good if the local economy cannot support existing jobs, or attract new ones, for its residents. In regions chronically […]
Most people accept that major purchases in life — e.g., housing, automobiles, appliances — come with cyclical budgeting impacts that require amortizing costs over the long term, through savings or borrowing. Why should anyone expect the national water infrastructure to be any different? The reality is that relatively long life-expectancies for major water infrastructure components […]
Water is life. It’s a catchy slogan that is so true we often miss the forest for the trees. Water is, quite literally, life. Without it, life as we know it ceases to exist. And yet modern day water treatment and distribution infrastructure and operational systems have made the gift of water so easy, we’ve […]
Clint Eastwood, the film industry icon, once said, “Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it” #SaidNoWaterUtilitiesDirectorEver. Sorry Mr. Eastwood, you’ve clearly never experienced life in water utilities. The water industry is constantly grappling with old versus new. The moment a piece of infrastructure is put in the ground, it’s aging. If […]
