City of Lockport Increases Water Revenue by 12% with Help From Sensus Metering Systems

Lockport, Illinois has a deep history in water. It was established in 1836 as the headquarters for the Illinois & Michigan Canal - the first navigable link from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, and a huge contributing factor to the growth of Chicago.

Today, this historic city is a fascinating tourist destination with scenic trails along the canal, the I&M Canal Museum, numerous restored structures and plenty of activities for craft and folk art enthusiasts.

The City of Lockport is also home to a very progressive Water Authority headed by City Administrator, Larry McCasland.

The Authority pumps, treats and delivers approximately 1.4 million gallons a day from its own deep and shallow wells. It maintains 53 miles of water lines to supply 5,353 service connections, including 288 commercial, industrial and governmental customers.

Lockport's total population is 15,633. It has 5,217 households (in case you're doing the arithmetic, a limited number of older homes have their own wells) and is expanding at a brisk pace. The Authority wanted to insure that it had the financial resources to handle expansions and keep providing its customers with high-quality water. It looked to its metering operations as a prospective source of increased revenues and operating efficiencies.

Upgrading the Metering System

Planning, researching and testing meters to determine their accuracy began in the mid-1990's, when Mr. Gordon McCluskey was the City Administrator and Larry McCasland was the Director of Public Works.

In 1997, Larry moved to the position of City Administrator and the City's huge capital improvements took flight.

The Authority was diligent about choosing an AMR system that would result in significant labor-cost savings and help to keep tabs on lost water. Larry sought advice from a long-term trusted supplier, US Filter, represented by Territory Manager, Jerry Plotke. Jerry presented the dollars and cents and operational benefits of a fully automated Sensus RadioRead® AMR System to Larry and, in turn, to City Council. US Filter/Invensys Metering Systems were awarded a contract to supply 6,000 new meters, that included SR meters for residential use and Series "W" Turbo Meters and SRH Compound Meters for larger volume applications.

In February of 1998, the City of Lockport issued a request for meter installation bids. A contract was awarded and that company installed 1,045 meters from June 16, 1998 until June of 1999.

The installation was re-bid and awarded in July 1999 to a local company, M&C Pump. According to Larry, M&C did a tremendous job installing a total of 2,526 meters. Including the 1,620 meters handled by the City staff, the total number of Sensus meters installed to date is 5,350.

Water Audits Revealed Surprising Results

To track the results of the meter change-out program, Larry hired an independent company to conduct comprehensive Water Audits for the periods of October 1 to September 30, starting in 1997 and each year thereafter.

The independent water auditor was so shocked by the 1.2% figure, they actually re-calculated all the numbers to make sure that they didn't make a mistake. Final calculations proved it was that dramatic.

Larry McCasland, being a numbers-oriented individual, asked the City Controller, Bill Riordan, if he could relate the amount of water saved through improved meter registration to the increase in City water revenue.

Bill figured the total increase in water revenue since the program began at 18.35%. He factored out the additional funds received from the increase in customer base at 6.64%, resulting in an astounding 11.71% increase in revenue attributed to the metering program upgrade.

Bill Riordan concluded that the revenue increase, combined with the meter program for new construction, has provided a 4-year payback on the City's $1.5 million capital improvement project.

The next substantial project that Larry McCasland and his staff have taken on is an agreement to assume responsibility for two neighboring sanitary districts, Bonnie Brae with 1000 customers, and Lockport Heights with 380. Included are agreements to change-out old water meters and bring their overall systems up to Lockport's demanding standards.

Reading and Billing Improvements

Prior to having an AMR system, it would take 16 days to read all the City meters. The use of the AutoRead HandHeld Devices reduced reading time to just 4 days. Today, with its powerful Vehicle Transceiver Unit (VXU), Meter Reader Al Simo figures he'll be able to drive his route and capture all the City readings in less than a day.

Jackie Schuler, Water Billing Clerk, says that accuracy has been her biggest benefit. Customer re-reads are pretty much a thing of the past and through the use of Sensus AutoRead software, as opposed to manual keyboarding, so is the chance of recording errors.

Jackie also tells us that billing used to be an on-going process. By the time she finished for the month, it was time to read meters again. The process has been simplified tremendously, and with the enhancement of the AutoVu meter reading disks, it'll really be quick. The Department expects to save enough time to extend the billing cycle by a week or more to allow customers more time to pay their water bills.

Jackie comments on the support she has received, "The people at Sensus are the best. When I call and leave a message, someone gets back to me within 10-15 minutes. They walk me through my computer questions, step-by-step, right on the phone."

Mark Spiri, Application Engineer for Sensus AMR Service, trained Jackie Schuler and answered her questions on the use of AutoVu with her AutoRead software. He also loaded the AutoRead program into Al Simo's AutoVu laptop computer.

Mark then traveled around the City with Al and Jackie, instructing them and helping them to take customer meter readings via the RadioRead VXU System. The final step was to download the files of customers into Jackie's office computer and refine them into an accurate, complete master list of customers.

Mark and others in his department stay with customers like Jackie and Al personally and on the phone until they are comfortable that they are trained and their systems operate up to their expectations.