Case Study
Case Study: City Of Palatka
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•Case Study: City Of Palatka
By Neptune Technology Group Inc.
Surrounded by live oaks, tall pines, and its famous azaleas, the City of Palatka is the seat of Putnam County in northeast Florida. Encompassing nearly 7.5 square miles along the St. Johns River, about a half-hour from the beaches on the state's east coast, the city supports a population of 11,000.
The City of Palatka Utility Department has provided for the needs of the community for more than 100 years and continues to do so under the direction of City Manager Woody Boynton. He and his staff of 15 now service nearly 100 miles of water main and 75 miles of sewer lines for 5,400 customers. The utility has also implemented significant recent capital improvements, including a six-million-gallon-per-day water treatment plant and a 3.5 million-gallon-per-day wastewater treatment facility.
Another key area for improvement has been the utility's meter reading and billing system. For years, the city sent out two meter readers every day of every week to manually read one of four "quadrants." Within each quadrant was any number of meter brands. Beginning in 1998, Palatka began a systematic transition strictly to Neptune meters; but nearly 12 years later, there were still between 10 and 15 percent of the various other brands in place. After taking inventory of its assets in the field, the team determined what was working – Neptune's products. This was especially the case with the meters themselves. "All we had to do was put a new [E-Coder®] encoder on the existing meters," Boynton said.
Click Here To Download:•Case Study: City Of Palatka
