Cooper City Deploys Technology To Help Customers Find Water Leaks To Save Money And Water

The technology will also save money for the water department

Cooper City is once again investing in conservation. Three years ago, the City’s award-winning You Win ­— We All Win conservation program included rebates for toilets, alternative supplies and a competitive program that got homeowner associations to compete to see who could save the most water.

The City’s goal was to reach sustainability, that is, to use the water already allocated as the community grows and redevelops. To do that, the City needed to reduce use by 5 percent in three years. In fact, the City saved 10 percent in half that time.

Now, Cooper City has invested in technology that will benefit customers and the environment for years to come.

“In the old days, if we needed more water, we applied for it, built new treatment plants to prepare it for customers and built new lines to deliver it to them,” said Mike Bailey, P.E. Utilities Director for Cooper City. “But, today, things are different.”

There is an absolute recognition that water resources are limited, that competition for the limited resources is growing along with the cost to treat and deliver the water to customers.

“We constantly look for ways to save customers money and to manage our rates,” Bailey said. “Conservation has done a lot for us already, but it can do more.”

The new technology, acquired in 2012, comes from Transparent Technologies, Inc. The Innov8 water meter uses the Verizon Wireless network to send meter data to utility workstations via the “cloud”. The data is provided to LeakerSeeker, Inc. which uses proprietary software to check for “anomalies” in the data (larger water flows, irregular patterns, unusual usage times and other inconsistencies). When these anomalies are found, the system generates a letter telling the customer about the anomaly, the amount of use and the cost per month of that use.

System testing ended in May. In June, nearly 1400 readings were processed with more than 30 letters generated to customers.

“Since testing began, the largest leak we’ve found amounted $127 per month additional cost for the customer. The average savings will be somewhere less than $50.

This new system saves us much more than that in staff time, processing by hand and letter generation,” Bailey added. “There is an investment cost for this system,” Bailey noted, “but it’s a fraction of the cost of fighting for additional allocation and building new treatment facilities.”