From its roots as one of the oldest towns in Washington, the City of Walla Walla has aged like a fine wine. Surrounded by vast vineyards from 120 different wineries, the area is well-known for its rich history. Unlike wine, however, the aging process has hurt some of its infrastructure—including 200 miles of water pipelines.
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The City of Walla Walla detected more than 2,000 leaks in the first year of deploying the Sensus smart utility network and promptly alerted homeowners for better customer service. (Photo: Business Wire)
“As our pipes failed and water meters aged, we began to see a 30 percent annual water loss—which is significant given that we distribute about three billion gallons of water each year,” said City of Walla Walla Water Distribution Supervisor Adrian Sutor. “We needed a solution to help us better track and maintain our water resources.”
The city decided a major upgrade was needed to enhance its metering system and curb unintended water loss. They chose to deploy a smart utility network from Sensus, a Xylem brand, to improve accuracy and leak detection while unlocking capabilities to advance their distribution system.
Walla Walla deployed Sensus iPERL® residential water meters and OMNI™ commercial meters to service the city’s 11,000 water accounts. Paired with the two-way FlexNet® communication network for near real-time remote monitoring, the city gained better control over its system and made tangible improvements to customer service.
“We detected more than 2,000 leaks in the first year of deployment and promptly alerted each customer of any issues which greatly improved our customer service,” said Sutor.
The city also deployed Sensus ally® water meters with the Sensus® Smart Gateway Sensor Interface for advanced pressure monitoring and management across residential accounts. Providing timely data insights on pressure, temperature, levels and switches, the system gave technicians confidence in a full-system profile.
“By reducing water loss and cutting down the carbon footprint associated with truck rolls, we were well on our way to becoming more sustainable as a utility,” said Sutor.
“The City of Walla Walla exemplifies the power of technology and data to address the water infrastructure challenges our country is facing,” said Colin Sabol, President, Measurement and Control Solutions at Xylem. “As much of Washington faces drought conditions, Walla Walla is taking a proactive stance to ensure a more water secure future for us all.”
Read the full case study to learn how Walla Walla continues to build a smart utility network to better serve residents and businesses.
About Sensus
Sensus helps a wide range of public service providers—from utilities to cities to industrial complexes and campuses—do more with their infrastructure to improve quality of life in their communities. We enable our customers to reach farther through the application of technology and data-driven insights that deliver efficiency and responsiveness. We partner with them to anticipate and respond to evolving business needs with innovation in sensing and communications technologies, data analytics and services. Learn more at sensus.com and follow @SensusGlobal on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.
About Xylem
Xylem (XYL) is a leading global water technology company committed to developing innovative technology solutions to the world’s water challenges. The Company’s products and services move, treat, analyze, monitor and return water to the environment in public utility, industrial, residential and commercial building services settings. Xylem also provides a leading portfolio of smart metering, network technologies and advanced infrastructure analytics solutions for water, electric and gas utilities. The Company’s approximately 17,000 employees bring broad applications expertise with a strong focus on identifying comprehensive, sustainable solutions. Headquartered in Rye Brook, New York, with 2018 revenue of $5.2 billion, Xylem does business in more than 150 countries through a number of market-leading product brands. For more information, please visit us at www.xylem.com.
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