City Receives Help To Digitally Map Water Infrastructure

The city of Davis, OK, is getting a much-needed upgrade to its water infrastructure map as technology continues to make strides.

The city’s map is now web-based, according to the Associated Press, and the division director’s employees can find water meters and fire hydrants by using an iPad.

The Journal Record  reported that Davis is “among five other small cities and rural water districts that have upgraded their maps using modern technology.” Davis received free assistance for the initiative from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB).

Bert Curtis, who has worked in the public utilities department for more than three decades, told the AP that it would cost about “$100,000 to hire an engineer to find all the city’s manholes, valves, water and wastewater pipelines and stormwater drains.”

In order to accomplish the task, the agency’s employees “follow city workers and rural water district employees through weed-filled fields,” and work through brush to find all the necessary parts, the AP reported.

Staff members from the OWRB then gather Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, and later create a web-based map for the municipalities, according to the AP.

Logan County Rural Water District was able to participate in the pilot project, according to clerk Liz Misar. Misar told the AP that because water travels sometimes through the rocks in the ground and “reaches the surface dozens of feet from the line,” it’s not always possible to locate a leaking water line.

Thanks to this new technological advantage, district employees will be able to use just a smartphone or tablet to easily find pipelines.

“This way they can pinpoint it a little better than just digging,” Misar told the AP.

Misar added that the district “probably could not have afforded to do the mapping project without the water board’s help.”

Money for the project comes from the agency’s revolving funds, the AP reported.

“People have to get their drinking water, we have to provide fire suppression and we have to put out our wastewater in an environmentally friendly way,” Curtis told the AP. “That’s more important than walking through the weeds and looking for water meters.”