News/Press Release

SS Water Supply Corporation
Advanced Water Metering Infrastructure

By Herb Williams, General Manager

Where did all of that water go? As the General Manager of SS Water Supply Corporation, I hear a version of this question almost daily as some members are faced with high water bills due to leaks in the member’s plumbing systems—leaks that have sometimes exceeded $6,000. In fact, our members have lost an estimated 32 million gallons of undetected water from their side of the meter during 2018. To put this in perspective, this is more than double the amount of water the Corporation uses for public safety, system flushing, distribution system leaks, and water line repairs across the 341 miles of distribution lines combined. As unsettling as these water leak numbers might be, my intent is not to scare our members or would be members. It’s to provide some context for the good news about how SS Water Supply Corporation plans to mitigate these water losses now and into the future. Over the last few years, SS Water Supply Corporation has been in the process of installing in-ground water meters that are capable of being upscaled to transmit meter readings wirelessly back to the central office, as opposed to using electronic tools that must physically tap the lid of each meter box - a time-consuming and costly practice. While this process has greatly improved the speed and accuracy of meter readings for billing purposes, the current system does nothing to fix the problem of alerting our technicians about possible water loss on the Members’ side of the meter. The SS Water Supply Corporation Board of Directors has studied this concern extensively, and in November, 2018 they unanimously agreed to upgrade the system’s water meters to go wireless. Each meter in the Corporation’s service area will have a transmitter installed that will automatically send information multiple times a day to SS Water technicians, who monitor this information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for system-generated alerts to leaks and/or other potential problems at our Member’s meters. This wireless system will not only improve response times, it will allow for faster recognition of any potential water loss issues that may be occurring! Preliminary system upgrade work began in February, 2019 with the installation of radio receivers to capture individual water meter transmissions, and we project the start of member’s meter upgrades around mid-March 2019 and going through Fall, 2019. For those properties that may have difficulty connecting wirelessly to receivers deployed in our service areas, drive-by wireless readings by SS Water vehicles specially equipped to read wireless meter signals will occur. Your Board of Directors and staff have thoroughly vetted the contractors and suppliers to ensure the most reliable and secure system available to our members and researched this system to ensure these meters and wireless components were safe and posed no health hazard to our members or community. Even though this new wireless system shows great promise in the area of leak mitigation, it is not a cure-all and our members should nonetheless remain vigilant about their own water usage. Once this technology matures in our system, it will also allow for an online “Member Portal” that will provide instant access to Member account information, alerts, and water usage. The Corporation expects this project to yield considerable savings to our Membership in future years, and will free up the resources necessary to support the rapid growth of our memberowned Corporation. Your SS Water Staff and Board of Directors are very excited about this service enhancement for our members, and we look forward to the day when we will be able to alert our Members to possible leaks sooner rather than later, while also ensuring fewer and fewer folks will have to ask “Where did all of that water go?!”