Case Study

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Named for its first permanent settler, French-Canadian fur trader Julien Dubuque, Dubuque is Iowa's oldest city. Now known as the "Masterpiece on the Mississippi", what began as a lead-mining and fur-trading center, became a major manufacturing hub; and today stands as the major retail, medical, education, and employment center for the area where Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois meet.

Unlike much of the rest of Iowa, the ninth-largest city in the state has varied topography – rolling hills, valleys, and steep bluffs that overlook the Mississippi River. Serving a population of 57,637 with approximately 22,500 water meters (22,386 residential, 114 commercial and industrial), the City of Dubuque Water Department had last undergone a system-wide changeout during the early 1980s. In its aging system, more than 40 percent of its meters were 25 years old or older; the technology to read these meters was nearly as outdated. The City contracted with the local natural gas utility to send out meter readers to walk routes, collecting data with a blend of old pulse generator remotes and touchpads.

Deciding in 2007 the time was right to move away from a "patchwork process", with direction from City Manager Michael C. Van Milligen, Finance Director Ken TeKippe, and Water Department Manager Bob Green, the City of Dubuque Water Department retained an engineering consulting firm to evaluate whether new technology was warranted. In 2008, another firm performed test studies on samples of the City's meters. A test sample of 150 meters more than five years old showed that 35 percent of small meters (from 5/8 to 1 inch) and 40 percent of large meters (11/2 to 8 inches) were inaccurate. To test whether accuracy was more than just a function of age, another sampling of 150 existing meters that were five years old or newer revealed that 15 percent of the small meters and 10 percent of the large meters were also inaccurate. In addition, testing showed that more than six percent of annual water consumption was not recorded, resulting in thousands in lost revenue every year.