Accurate, Long-Term Metering Solution for Heber Springs

Heber Springs is a resort town located on Greers Ferry Lake in north central Arkansas. The town’s water and wastewater utility serves approximately 5,500 water customers and two wholesale water systems. In addition to commercial and industrial customers, the utility serves a significant number of weekend and summer vacation homes.

Heber Springs had been experiencing various challenges for a number of years, including finding qualified personnel to obtain accurate and timely meter readings, identifying leaks quickly due to inaccurate or old meters, and managing extra time spent on misreads and rechecking meter reads.

To address these concerns, Heber Springs worked with its distributor, Henard Utility Products, to find the best AMI solution for its water system. Heber Springs ultimately decided to implement Badger Meter’s BEACON® Advanced Metering Analytics (AMA) managed solution with ORION® Cellular endpoints and the EyeOnWater® smartphone/tablet application, in addition to installing Badger Meter’s E-Series® Ultrasonic meters throughout its system.

The BEACON® AMA managed solution has greatly increased efficiencies for Heber Springs. Because the cloud-based software suite uses existing cellular networks, there is no need to install or maintain fixed-network gateways. In addition, the water utility team now receives real-time water usage data on a daily basis rather than monthly, which helps the team detect and address leaks faster than ever before.

Badger Meter’s E-Series® Ultrasonic meter.

“A few months ago, I saw that one of the vacation homes in our system had a considerable leak. I was able to alert the customer, who lives in Little Rock full time, almost immediately,” said Kent Latch, the utility’s general manager. “I stopped by her vacation home the same day, and I found and stopped the leak in a matter of minutes.”

The Heber Springs utility team was also able to find a 283-­gallon-per-hour leak at one of the city’s baseball fields — a major source of non-revenue water loss for the utility. After identifying the leak using the BEACON AMA managed solution, the Heber Springs team quickly fixed the problem.

“Our water loss has dropped pretty substantially,” added Paul Graham, assistant manager of the utility. “Currently, we have reduced our water loss between four and eight percent. We still have a number of meters to install, so this isn’t even a complete indicator of the system’s full capability.”

Heber Springs has also installed Badger Meter’s polymer E-Series Ultrasonic meters, which monitor consumption and rate of flow, and provide reverse-flow indications and alarms. With no moving parts, they last longer and are more accurate than mechanical meters, and are especially suited for metering low flows.

BEACON® Advanced Metering Analytics (AMA).

With the new water metering system in place, Heber Springs’ customers are also able to have more hands-on access to their water usage. The EyeOnWater mobile application allows water customers to see their water usage in real time. In addition, they can set alarms when their water usage has reached a certain level. As a result, the utility has seen a reduction in the time spent managing customer questions.

“With many of our customers living in other areas and using their homes here on a seasonal basis, the EyeOnWater application is especially valuable. Once the customer understands the capabilities of EyeOnWater, they love the ability to follow their usage [remotely],” said Graham. “Overall, our customers are pleased with the new system, and so are we. We would recommend this system to anyone.” WW

Badger Meter offers an end-to-end solution that helps water utilities generate needed revenue, monitor and conserve their resources, and better serve their valued end water customers. To learn more, visit www.badgermeter.com.