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City digging in with new water meters

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The Herald-Sun | photos by Christine T. Nguyen<br /> Meter technician Daniel King installs a new water meter at a home off Hawthorne Drive on Friday. Durham’s Water Management Department is replacing existing water meters with radio-read models.

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Some complain about cost, aesthetics of radio-read models

By Ray Gronberg

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DURHAM -- Contractors before the end of August had installed about 8,500 of the roughly 80,000 radio-read water meters Durham's Water Management Department intends to put in throughout the city.

The company the department chose for the opening phase of the upgrades, Vanguard Utility Service Inc., began work on July 1 and has until the end of the year to place 20,000 meters, said Vicki Westbrook, deputy director of water management.

The contract with Vanguard will cost the city up to $4.9 million. The work completed so far has mostly been in neighborhoods north of Interstate 85, Westbrook said.

Citywide, officials are expecting the long-planned upgrade to cost $19.8 million, according to Durham's capital improvement program. A combination of pay-as-you go money and loans are likely to cover the bill.

Vanguard will have to compete for the right to continue working past its current contract, as city officials plan to take new bids when follow-on phases are ready, Westbrook said.

Water Management officials pushed for the meter replacements as an efficiency measure.

Once the radio-read models are in, city employees will be able to read figures on customers' water usage from passing trucks, rather than having to get out and look at the meters.

That will save enough time that the city can move to a monthly billing cycle, in place of the once-every-two-months cycle it's on now. Water department officials believe the more frequent billings will encourage conservation.

Automated readings should help the city government avoid billing errors, like those that affected up to 11,000 customers earlier this year when officials discovered a meter reader had falsified some reports.

Officials also are projecting additional savings from reduced labor and fuel costs. Once the project's complete, they think they'll need only about a third of the positions and vehicles now assigned to meter-reading duties.

Going in, they needed 10 workers and 10 vehicles to do the job.

But the project has its detractors, among them Bill Anderson, a Duke Park activist.

Anderson said he doesn't think the meter replacements are worth the cost, particularly since they're likely to displace relatively low-skill jobs that officials could use to help the local economy.

He also said some installations are hurting community appearance. Outside some homes, the city's having to raise the meters 3 to 4 inches above ground to ensure a good signal.

Anderson is further worried that sloppy installation work could trigger plumbing problems.

He bases that on conversations with a plumber, Loren Webster, who told The Herald-Sun a meter upgrade may have helped break a water heater belonging to one of his customers.

Damage to water heaters is theoretically possible in older homes if workers put in special valves to prevent "backflow," a pressure change that sucks water from the home back into the city piping network.

Webster said he thinks a backflow valve tied to a new meter contributed to his customer's water-heater problem, by giving hot water as it expands nowhere to go but through the heater's own pop-off.

The escaping water trickled into the heater's electronics and shorted them out, he said.

City officials are aware of Webster's complaint but don't think his customer's new meter was responsible. Workers are not installing anti-backflow valves are part of the project, Westbrook said.

Another plumber who works in the area, Brown Brothers Plumbing & Heating Inc. President Rick Whitaker, said he and his staff haven't seen any cases like the one Webster reported.

But they have dealt with at least one repair to a lawn irrigation system a customer suspects can be traced to meter work.

Whitaker said that if a worker jiggles an irrigation system's PVC piping enough while replacing a meter, it's possible to dislodge a fitting in the irrigation system somewhere.

But in his customer's case, "I can't tell you right here right now whether [the meter work] caused it or not," Whitaker said.

He added that he does suspect city will get plenty of complaints about the above-ground meters, which result when supporting pipes are too close to ground level to allow workers to completely bury the new unit.

"I don't think the city has done a very good job of educating the consumer on that," Whitaker said.

Warning urged after toilet mishaps

- From the Hearld Sun September 5, 2010

By Ray Gronberg

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DURHAM -- Following some reported, er, blowback, Water Management Department officials say they'll try harder to warn residents when its crews visit a neighborhood to flush out sewer lines.

The move comes because some people living in Northgate Park say water splashed out of their toilets when crews blasted air into the lines in their area to break up root and grease clogs.

That for several became a "grossly unpleasant experience" that could have been avoided, Northgate Park resident Ian Pond said in a recent message to City Manager Tom Bonfield.

Bonfield agreed with the could-have-been-avoided part, and for the second time in less than a year prodded Water Management to beef up its notification procedures. An initial directive following an incident last year, he told Pond, "was not followed."

Now, Water Management Director Don Greeley is promising that clean-out crews will hang notices on the doorknobs of homes in the neighborhoods they visit for scheduled maintenance.

They'll also "make every attempt" to do the same in emergency situations, Greeley said.

The water department, meanwhile, will work with the city public affairs office to come with a "more robust [set of] communication tools" to publicize sewer clean-outs, he said.

Using neighborhood e-mail lists or the 911 center's "Code Red" robo-call system are among the possibilities on that front, Greeley said in a message to Bonfield.

The clean-outs themselves are an essential part of the department's maintenance program.

State regulators want Water Management to clean 10 percent of Durham's sewer lines each year.

The preferred technique is to blast compressed air through the mains, at pressures that sometimes approach 2,000 pounds per square inch, said Vicki Westbrook, the department's deputy director.

Cleaning the lines helps prevent sewer spills that foul nearby streams, she said.

Crews are supposed to open a manhole some distance away from where they're working to give the high-pressure air a place to escape, Westbrook said.

But there nonetheless is "potential for it to get into" the lines that link the sewer network to individual homes, she said.

The complaints from Northgate Park suggest that potential has intersected real life.

Though the water department hasn't fielded any complaints directly, officials do know there's been traffic on neighborhood e-mail lists and at least one complaint to Bonfield's office, Westbrook said.

"From what most people said, it's spillage with that initial poof or burst of air," Westbrook said, adding that the department doesn't "have a good feel for the numbers of people impacted."

The spilled water in theory should be as clean as whatever happened to be in the toilet bowl.

Nonetheless, Northgate Park residents weren't happy. "Instead of working, we'll be sanitizing two bathrooms for the remainder of the morning," one West Murray Street homeowner grumped in a posting to the neighborhood's e-mail list.

Assuming they know about clean-out work ahead of time, there are things people can do to minimize the risk of spillage.

The simplest precaution is to leave the toilet seat down.

Westbrook said residents can gain added protection by taking a bath towel, folding it two or three times, draping it over the bowl and dropping the lid down on top of it to hold it in place.

Did you know that minor leaks from household plumbing fixtures and irrigation systems account for more than 1 trillion gallons of water wasted each year in U.S. homes? As a reminder to everyone, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is promoting its second annual WaterSense "Fix a Leak Week," March 15 to 21, 2010.

EPA created this week-long annual event to give its WaterSense utility, community, manufacturer, retail, and professional partners a call to action to encourage saving water. For example, the City of Dallas and dozens of local plumbers will launch Fix a Leak Week by taking to the streets to repair leaks in low-income residences and replace fixtures with WaterSense labeled models. The Great Dallas Fix a Leak Week Roundup — a seven-day blitz to completely wipe out the waiting list for the city's leak repair program — is just one of many events WaterSense partners will be hosting in their communities across the country.

WaterSense is encouraging homeowners, do-it-yourselfers, and plumbing professionals to help find and fix leaks by promoting the following tips:

Reduce faucet leaks by checking faucet washers and gaskets for wear and, if necessary, replace the faucet with a WaterSense labeled model.
Replace worn rubber flappers, which can cause silent leaks in toilets.
For a leaky garden hose, replace the nylon or rubber hose washer and ensure a tight connection to the spigot using pipe tape and a wrench.
Check landscape irrigation systems each spring before use to make sure they are not damaged by frost or freezing.
Remember to look for the WaterSense label if you have to replace a bathroom fixture.

To learn more about Fix a Leak Week or to become a WaterSense partner, visit www.epa.gov/watersense.

The House Bill
SESSION LAW 2009-532
HOUSE BILL 1409

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