Case Study

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Located in northwestern Oklahoma, the City of Enid shares the wide open, flat spaces with wheat fields and oil wells. Founded during the famous Land Rush of 1893, the "Queen Wheat City" began an oil boom in 1910. Now also the home of Vance Air Force Base and an overall population of nearly 50,000 people, the City serves 20,500 water service connections – 17,500 residential and 3,000 commercial and industrial (C&I) accounts. Even in the best of times, the water meter system was a challenge to maintain; but especially during the 1990s with an oil bust and drop in population, the resources for regular maintenance were scarce.

The area experienced a turnaround by the mid-2000s, so much so that population growth caused increasing demand on the water system. It became increasingly evident that the existing 80-year-old metering infrastructure (including an eclectic mix of products from different manufacturers) was inadequate as was the water distribution system. In 2007, the City decided to invest in improvements to its public works system, while new utility management came on board around the same time.

According to City Manager Eric Benson, many of the aging meters were inaccurate, inefficient, and unreliable. Head of Engineering Robert Hitt agreed, saying that an upgrade was needed to the meters to "comply with a reasonable standard of accuracy". In the summer of 2009, the City, under the leadership of Jim McClain, Public Works Director, began looking into an automated meter reading system. Utility Services Manager Scott Morris said the goal was to provide "the best efficiency, the best service, and the best system of data collection that [would be] maintainable and renewable for the life of the meters".