In 1857, Brigham Young established a Cotton Mission in the southwestern corner of Utah and Washington City– named for the first U.S. President George Washington–became the home of the state’s first cotton mill. Today, this thriving city of more than 30,000 is ranked #1 in the country as the “best small city to start a business” by Wallethub and commercial growth keeps pace with a quickly growing residential population. It is noteworthy that the top three cities in this national ranking are in Southwest Utah, with St. George and Cedar City ranked second and third.

In a region with limited water supplies, however, both commercial and residential growth require the most efficient use of available water. Washington City is now also known as the first in the state with advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) for 100% of its residential water users. Advanced metering infrastructure integrates smart water meters, communication networks, and data management systems, facilitating monitoring of water usage and communication between utilities and customers. The city began its transition to AMI 9 years ago. As standard automated meter reading meters failed, the city replaced them with AMI. Today, there are 14,000 residential AMI meters installed in the city and efforts are underway to transition commercial properties as well.
 
Installing AMI meters was the first step in the process. In 2021, the city requested a propagation study from its meter provider, Master Meter, Inc., to locate and install the radio towers and repeaters needed to support data collection from the city’s AMI. Once the study was complete and the cost for the towers and repeaters was determined, Assistant Public Works Director Lester Dalton requested city council approval for the installation of the towers and repeaters on city property. On April 1, 2023, the system was completed and launched for utility customers.

One day ahead of launching the system for the city’s residents, on March 31st, Washington City’s Utilities Department pulled leak alarms for meters registering more than 7 gallons per hour of use for 24 consecutive hours. The results were “mind blowing”. Seven hundred gallons per minute–more than 1 million gallons per day–were leaking from the city’s water system on the customer side of the meters! Because the leaks were on the customer side of the meters, the utility continued to receive payment for the water, but the primary goal of water conservation was not being met. Since then, the utility has actively reached out to customers with leaks, contacting them to make
them aware of the issue.

According to Mr. Dalton, “There’s not a better conservation measure to put in place than AMI.” The technology empowers the city’s utility customers to better understand their own water consumption patterns by providing hourly water use data. The associated smart phone-based application may also be configured to provide leak alerts in the case of continuous water flow through the meter for 24 consecutive hours. “Customers want to conserve, but they may not know that they have a leak or how much water they’re actually conserving,” says Mr. Dalton.
 
Today, the city has red, yellow, and orange leak alerts–depending on volume–and the alerts are delivered to customers through the MyWaterAdvisor smart phone application. On the city’s internet home page, there is also a link with additional resources for residents to support AMI data use and adoption of the application, including a video tutorial for setting up the app and leak alerts. The city has also received grant funding through the Utah Division of Water Resources and the Washington County Water Conservancy District to support customer communications.
 
For other communities considering AMI, Mr. Dalton recommends being ready with policies to back up the effort. Typically, AMI is focused on making billing easier but there are other potential benefits to having detailed water use data. Washington City found out that there were many leaks in the city’s water system by using AMI but had to consider how to address them in the city’s code of ordinances. Title 7, Chapter 1 on “Water Use and Service” addresses water waste, however, the original concept for the “Rules” was to address sprinkler overspray and other visible water waste. Advanced metering infrastructure extended understanding of water waste to leaks that are most often not visible.

“We’d like to have 100% adoption of the [MyWater Advisor] app and leak alerts,” says Mr. Dalton, “so we’ll see how we’re doing in a year. People need to have an idea of what they’re using. Can I skip an irrigation day every week? Can I do that all summer long? That can result in a lot of savings, but they can’t change what they’re not aware of.”

For more information on Washington City’s AMI system and My Water Advisor, see:
https://washingtoncity.org/services/publicworks/water/ami