Devices Protect Georgia Water Network From Shutdowns

Pilot trials of an adaptable pressure monitoring device that can tap directly into a utilities water network is protecting a utility in Atlanta, Georgia from avoidable cut-offs, leading to proactive water distribution management, says Lou Rossetti senior vice president of sales North America at Orbis Intelligent Systems.

Extreme pressure events in the water network are being driven down by a successful collaboration between Clayton County Water Authority and California-based technology company Orbis. The partnership began in January 2024, when Clayton County Water Authority, based in the Atlanta metropolitan area, installed Orbis SmartCap leak detection devices onto 50 fire hydrants.

Subsequently, the municipality decided to trial Orbis’s pressure monitoring device, SmartPressure, too, to augment the County’s water loss monitoring analysis.

The drinking water distribution network of Clayton County Water Authority comprises 1,400 miles of pipes and distributes up to 26 million gallons of water a day, serving over 87,560 properties, including 80,668 residential and 4,813 commercial properties.

Clayton County lies south of the city of Atlanta and geographically includes Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic. However, the city of College Park, to the northeast, manages the airport’s water distribution but purchases water from Clayton County.

Extreme Drivers
For Clayton County Water Authority managers, the main driver in piloting Orbis’s SmartPressure monitoring devices were to bolster protection against distribution cut-offs and shutdowns during extremes of weather, especially storms and freezing temperatures, or unforeseen circumstances.

In December 2022, Georgia experienced a winter storm on Christmas Eve where temperatures plummeted to 12 degrees Fahrenheit (-10oC), leading to a complete failure in communications between water managers and the SCADA systems (supervisory control and data acquisition) of the Clayton County Water Authority network.

The freeze-thaw effect of the water in the network caused pipes to crack and when the storm dissipated from December 26, and temperatures rose again, network-wide leakages and loss of pressure occurred. Many incidents went undetected for days as Clayton County Water Authority managers tried to rebalance the distribution.

Managers had no digital overview or data of the low pressure occurring across the water distribution network to make informed decisions on corrective action.

Donald Conner, Clayton County Water Authority’s distribution manager, described the events as “the perfect storm” as water managers had to cut off 200 services lines to homes and 125 large service lines to vacant businesses.

“It took about a week to get the network back up and running after repairing twelve main breaks, and we experienced a complete loss of pressure once water started being distributed as normal,” said Conner.

“Disruption was felt in neighboring counties and the city of Atlanta too as water managers tried to balance the knock-on effects of the winter storm through sending and receiving water where possible to re-establish pressure and get homes and businesses reconnected.”

As a result of the winter storm event, College Park had new pumps installed after the winter storm which presented Clayton County Water Authority with further pressure challenges. The new pumps had a higher PSI (pounds per square inch) start-up pressure than the Clayton County Water Authority network could handle.

College Park began reporting to Clayton County Water Authority managers that its pumps were not working to capacity, or that the pressure was low, whenever water was drawn from the water tower in the north of the county.

The water network pressure would be balanced out once the pumps stabilized, but the missing link was that Clayton County Water Authority managers were lacking key data on how unforeseen circumstances affect the water pressure network wide as well as having a high-level overview to help water managers plan and be proactive with extreme pressure drops or rises.

Pressure Monitoring Pilot
In early January 2025, Orbis worked in collaboration with Clayton County Water Authority to install five SmartPressure devices at strategic areas of the county to pilot the technology.

A key installation location was adjacent to the water tower used by College Park. The remaining four were placed in a mixed residential and industrial area comprising homes and apartment complexes, schools, restaurants, and shopping centers.

Outputs from the pilot trial of SmartPressure has helped Clayton County Water Authority to gather evidence for a water model viability study. This is especially true in relation to its water purchasing agreement with College Park.

The data gathered during the pilot has proved the need for the installation of a 16-inch water main in College Park in the coming years to sustain consistent pressure, resilience and high-water quality in the wider network and for neighboring counties networks too.

Adaptable Design
The pressure SmartPressure monitoring devices comprise a 6” x 3” x 2½” (150mm x 70mm x 60mm) unit containing batteries, electronics, and cellular communication parts fitted with a quarter-inch NTP threaded transducer. The transducer can be connected to any continuous stream or body of water within a water distribution system to actively measure the pressure in the water network constantly throughout the day.

The SmartPressure device and its transducer is suitable for placement in above or below ground installations, depending on where the water network can be accessed and environmental factors that make direct contact with the water distribution network for the best results.

For Clayton County Water Authority, the SmartPressure devices have been placed in underground chambers containing other assets to allow direct connection of the transducer to the water network.

The transducer sends pressure data to the electronics and cellular comms in the unit, that is fitted with a long-term evolution (LTE) antenna, specially designed to receive and transmit signals for 4G wireless networks. Data collected is transmitted from each SmartPressure device to Orbis’s cloud-based portal called Streamline.

The SmartPressure device antenna can be either internal or external, depending on environmental and locational factors, to best communicate with the cloud-based portal. Boasting a small footprint, the SmartPressure is discreet and able to be secured anywhere within the water network.

Comparative Analysis
One of the biggest advantages of the Orbis SmartPressure devices for Clayton County Water Authority managers is the ability to see data analysis of more than one device on one single graph, for a comparative overview of how the network is performing overall. This is especially beneficial for hard-to-access water mains in areas such as woodlands.

Conner said, “A comparative overview also allows for analysis of how low or high pressure events at one location impact others in the network, and how different remedial actions such as, timings, flow rates, or contextual factors such as weather patterns can affect pressure collectively.”

Sheldon Anderson, Orbis southeast regional sales director, added, “Devices can be programed with a low and high pressure threshold, sending an actionable alert notification if a transient spike or loss in pressure occurs to enable near real-time reporting.

“The devices also send summaries of pressure events and activity each night to the Streamline portal, so water managers can make assessments on network efficiency and any other trends over the medium to long term.”

SmartCaps Interaction
SmartPressure uses the same cloud-based portal as the Orbis SmartCap leak detectors, allowing for a single sign-on interface for utilities to understand any correlations or connections between leak locations and pressure alerts, if SmartCaps are installed. Currently, Clayton County Water Authority has 69 SmartCaps, installed through 2024.

Conner said, “Having the SmartPressure and SmartCap data on the same interface helps our teams to align locations and have a deeper understanding of problems in the network as well as helping us to prioritize work correctly.

The hope in the future is to deploy more SmartPressure devices close to the SmartCaps to make data analysis and correlation of potential issues even easier on the Streamline portal to ensure accurate remediation work to save time and money and minimize the impacts of water loss.”

Daily Benefits
The biggest daily benefit so far has been an enhanced understanding of how the College Park pumping from the water tower in the north of Clayton County affects the overall water network.

Water managers can see the startup pressure once College Park starts pumping and ensure that the pressure in the whole system does not fall below 20psi. Managers can now also use this evidence to work with College Park to negotiate a temporary drop-off if needed, while work is undertaken to balance out pressure in the network.

The benefits going into winter 2025 will be measurable as the pressure alerts and daily summaries will help managers to understand further how weather events affect the system and will allow proactive and preventative work to take place, reducing the changes of property damage, shut offs, or entire collapse of the distribution network.

As Clayton County Water Authority continues to deploy and install SmartPressure devices in strategic parts of its network, the future ambition is to require all new commercial buildings to purchase devices and have them installed into onsite water vaults, attached to water meters, to reduce retrofitting and accelerate visibility of larger demands on the water distribution network.

Strong Collaboration
It is an open secret that Conner was reluctant to initially pilot Orbis’ technology when first proposed in 2023.

Anderson said, “At first there was understandable resistance at what ‘yet another piece of equipment’ could do, but seeing was believing, and Orbis took the time to show the Clayton County Water Authority team how the SmartCaps and SmartPressure devices worked, and the advantages compared to others on the market.”

Since the installation of the first SmartCap to the planned expansion of the SmartPressure devices, Conner highlights the strength of customer service at Orbis. He said, “The team at Orbis are so involved in ensuring the SmartPressure devices work for and help us day-to-day, even personally contacting us about pressure alerts we may have missed.

“It has been a great partnership and team effort with Orbis to make the Clayton County Water Authority network more resilient and to share that goal has been incredibly motivating. At the end of the day, what is at risk is our customers not getting water and that’s unacceptable, so the team is incredibly pleased with what has already been achieved and is motivated by further advances as we continue.”