 Good evening everybody. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. I'm so glad each of you are here to another one of our district six Listening circles today's conversation will be on water. I'm councilmember Jared Williams It is extremely an honor to be able to Represent the great district of district six the district that I grew up in and many of you are raising families and have raised families in So again, it's just indeed honored to be able to have this conversation with each of you I'm going to give a few announcements before I hand it over for the reason why we're all here So there is a gentleman in the back. He is here handing out information a nonpartisan information about the upcoming fourth ISD bond election The polls are now open for that bond election And so if you need any information about what's on the bond there is information back there If you need updating your voter registration or anything like that He can help you so thank you so much for being here also, I Think I may have lost oh to my folks who are watching online and for those of you in the room this Conversation the entire thing will be recorded We will be sending that out on our social media It's at our social media is at Jared Williams TX and that's our city council page So a lot of updates will go out there. I'm speaking of updates We also have mr. Kindle lock who's my district director for district six If y'all are not receiving updates and same for the folks who are watching this online If you aren't receiving updates, please share your information with mr. Kindle lock We'll make sure that we're getting you on our regular updates from the district and from the city With that being said again, I'm super excited that y'all are here tonight's conversation again is on all things related to water And the purpose of our listening circles is really to be able to connect you the residents of forward district six to The folks who can help talk through some of the issues I'm in ideas that you have about of specific issues and so again tonight's conversation is very focused on water And so we have our city of Fort Worth team that does all things related to water And so please feel free. I know some of my friends here have folder. So don't worry We'll be able to talk through those as well I will be handing it off to Sandy She is another one of our teammates with the city of Fort Worth and she'll be able to introduce the team The team will be given presentations and also we'll be looking for you to lift up Questions ideas and even concerns that you have without any further do I hand it off to Sandy and thank y'all again Thank you, Jared You have influential friends because they approached us right away when they came into the gymnasium and said who do we Complain to and he didn't use the word complain Good evening. My name is Sandy Baker. I'm in communications with the water utility. I've been with the utility a little over three and a half years mainly responsible for the my H2O program, which is the new water meters and Customer portal I'm going to introduce our staff here tonight is our water director Chris Harder He's going to speak in a few minutes about the And here comes John Kassavich about with some maps about the cast iron replacement program I know you're all aware of that because of the winter storm We have Kara charar who is our deputy water director Jerry Presley who is an assistant water director for customer care? And he is going to talk and lead our discussion on the my H2O program Next we have Marty Barker who is our AMI administrator AMI stands for advanced metering infrastructure, which is the new water meters and Hazel Staluna who is a supervisor in meter services He did bring a new water meter with him to demonstrate if you guys have any questions about that so and I if we have time will lead a little bit of a Presentation on the new customer portal, so we'll get started with Chris. All right. Thank you, Sandy I'll say I'm familiar with this this venue here I've worked for the water department for 20 years now and my first public meeting When I got here was in this location and this is when we were doing smoke testing neighborhood smoke testing and you know, that's very Concerns people when they see smoke potentially coming out of their house So this this this auditorium was pretty much filled when we had a neighborhood smoke testing going on So I wanted to a little bit talk about some of the things that we have going on more regionally As far as our utility But also things that affect this district and so, you know, we suffered that terrible winter storm back in February That basically allowed us to kind of reprioritize some of the investments that we were making we'd planned all along to be Funding cast iron pipe replacement at a pretty high level, but that even more focused our efforts on that and so as far as Things that are going on within the district in response to the winter storm There's going to be accelerated amount of cast iron pipe replacement. There's also investment in some of the backup power supplies and Just if you look at just down this this area you see our ultimacy pump station That pump station is to plan to have a backup generator installed and hopefully that can be done in the next year a year and a half As far as this project that we're here to talk about the my H2O project It's a complete replacement of all of our meters about 270,000 of them We're now about 235,000 meters replaced But prior to actually doing the meter replacements what we did is we actually Inventoryed all of our existing meters and as part of that inventory process We actually looked to see what the service line material was and if you've heard the the name flint, Michigan Before you know that removing lead from water systems is a high priority both for the federal government But also for utilities in general. So as part of that inventory program, we were able to identify public lead services and so to date we've identified a little bit over 1,800 of those services and Thankfully we're getting to the end of our replacement program which started in about in 2016 so we think that we have about a hundred services left to to be replaced all those are under contract and I will tell you that with a lot of these These lead service replacement projects. There's also cast iron pipe replacement at the same time. So a Little bit more So there's been a lot of synergy between the cast iron pipe replacement and then the lead service replacement as part of these programs As far as other projects, you know, we are continuing to grow so Especially to the south of here, you know that we had the Tarleton school came in which Involved significant capital investment and really what we have is we have a program that's going to be Increasing our sewer capacity really all the way from the Tarleton area in the Bend Rook watershed All the way down to our Village Creek plant. So a significant investment in that capital infrastructure With that That's kind of a high-level Overview of kind of what we have going on as far as infrastructure work Especially in this district like I say most of the growth is relay is down further to the south so a lot of the investment you see through here is infill and Capital infrastructure replacement, which you know, we are funding at a much higher level. So who's speaking next? Okay, so and and John Kastavich is one of our Engineers in our infrastructure section. He can speak briefly, but I know he's has a lot of detailed information so it may be one of those things that Without being able to show a map it may be something that if you're interested in that You come and talk to him after the after the meeting Like Chris said, we'll go pretty quick here. This is just kind of an update of of Projects that we have proposed for design and construction here over the next couple of years and this is Basically the north edge boundary of your district six here at 820 and You know, most of these here kind of clustered around around the 820 area Most of the cast iron pipe that Chris mentioned earlier here in district six is basically north of ultimacy north of ultimacy and south of 820 so that's pretty much the area that we're focusing as far as main replacements go there and Like I said, we've got individual maps here and Basically some street lists for you guys to take a look at if there's anything specific that you know, you have Questions on or whatever if it's you know related to the water department or the streets you can you know, let me know Yes That's a high school. Do you mean? Oh from the math, okay So basically so basically this is ultimacy here All right, so this 820 or 20s up here. All right, and so this basically this Boundary here. This is wedge or Wedgewood Trail Lake area here. All right wood way Here runs north south Yeah, yeah Yeah, so so basically yeah, this is your welch right here. So that yeah, you're basically here in relation to that So basically a lot of your cast iron here Pipe is is is from this from ultimacy here going going north to a 20. So yes Okay, so this basically what we did was like these these are basically planned projects So this is just a general area that we circled that we're looking at replacing, you know water and sanitary sewer Basically Walton Wren Yeah, yeah, it's it's on there, but yeah Right, right. Yeah, I mean, but we've we've got individual maps and List you know that kind of show you the street limits from it to and you know We do have a comprehensive plan meeting coming up. We can put together some some good exhibits for you councilman So that we can That you can share them, but what we'll do is we'll put together district specifics investment maps for you And I'll just say, you know if you have questions about your water bill specifically Our our staff is happy to like check in those individual Accounts and we can go and do the investigation and get back with you tomorrow I know Jerry's up next. I do want to say one thing about the AMI program and that is That is it is a Part of the actual state water plan so Why would an AMI project be part of the state water plan you may ask and that is it's all about Stewardship of water supply whether it's on the utility side on the customer side By having an AMI program what it allows is you the customer to have your usage information in an hourly increments Right now you only receive it a usage number once per month With an AMI program you actually have hourly data so you can use that to Evaluate your water usage and your usage profile So we think it's very very helpful to not only our customers But also to our utility and what we're going to be using the data for is we're going to be looking at all of our Water usage across our system. Yes, ma'am Yeah, we will Definitely. Yeah, because I mean you want to be able to use the data Yeah, so I look at it like this is a stewardship issue for the utility But also it gives that you the tools to be a steward on your end on the water use so for that I'll turn it over to Jerry Well, thank you Chris and good evening everyone And I mean it's Jerry Presley. I've been with the water department 24 years Yeah, and I'd like to say that My hair was a lot fuller back back when I started so working for the water department is dangerous to your hair But others over there, you know just prove the my thesis So I'm a scientist by trade I've had to learn the business of water In recent years and one of my backgrounds biology and chemistry and and the like and so When I when I approach what some of our customers questions. I really want to help you understand and What's going on from from really the technical level, but it so that makes sense to you? so Little bit about the water department the utility in general and that I've learned As I've come to know the business and that is we're an enterprise fund And that means that we're not supported by taxes We our rate that our cost of service is Generated by it's what really sets our rates. So whatever it costs us to buy raw water, you know treat it Distribute it meter it in all of those kinds of things that really kind of sets what our rates are So we recover those costs through through our rate structure and through billing meters are an important part of Equitably assessing those Costs to customers that use our services We went through a competitiveness assessment survey Study in about 2010 and really what happened the city was looking at whether it made more sense to For us to continue operating as a government utility public loan treatment work or whether it made more sense to Subcontract us out or consign us out to a private Operation and one of the things that study determined was that there was a we were we were highly competitive That were really good at what we do There wasn't enough money on the profit side for the for the private entities to make money without affecting your rates pretty considerably So we felt good about that study, but one of the things that came out of that study was was a an unsolicited Recommendation that we look at advanced metering infrastructure as a mechanism of means to To ensure that we're being good stewards of our resources that we are doing our part to help Manage and make sure the water is affordable into the future or that sort of thing so that our current idea my program Is is Something we you our customers have been exposed to recently, but it's been something. It's been underway for almost a decade so Yeah, it's it's a we did we thought there's a lot of studying One of the things that we really looked at carefully is the kind of meter that we wanted to install We did some tremendous research in selecting the meter type and the meter manufacturer wanting to go with a world Wrecking a worldwide recognized leader in metering technology. That's how we selected Census and then we also wanted to make sure we selected the right metering type of technology. There are different ways of metering water Turbines and and That sort of thing we selected technology called the positive displacement It's an oscillating piston positive displacement meter and what that means is in order to for that to really register that water water Goes into the piston fills it up And actually cause it to rotate and then discharge it So one of the really neat things about that is it's really not possible to over register the water I know that a lot of our customers disagree. I've heard about them But so so we really went into this making sure that we selected the right meters the right technology the right partner to get our program really launched and We as a city and under under Chris's leadership and Kara's leadership. We operate As best we can like like a business out in the private world We want to we want to make sure that we're being good stewards of resources when I make sure that our products are the highest quality we want to make sure that we're Producing keeping our rates affordable, you know, that's that's our back and we want to we really Care about our customers. We want to be transparent. We want you to feel confident in the services. We're providing so advanced metering infrastructure is is as Chris was alluding to earlier a best management practice Recommended by the Texas Water Development Board as a means of not only conservation, but equitability and be in metering and also ensuring affordability, so it's really Tremendous value in doing that and one of the the easiest To observe impacts is Really not not let me back up a little bit our decision to move forward with advanced metering infrastructure with my H2o Was is is that it's really a fundamental business transformation for us as a utility It's changing the way we do business and we'll get kind of get to a little bit of that a little bit later But one of the most visible means of of seeing that is in our remote reading technology that we've deployed So before AMI we actually had a contract with the vendor that went out and manually read meters And then they had to you know, punch those meter those readings into a handheld device bring that back and have it uploaded into a computer system But it was it was a manual process and it was the potential for misreads and the like was there with with AMI and Remote reading technology we are able to get those readings You know hourly instead of once a month, but then also remotely through our Transmitter that's part of your meter installation that right transmits through a remote network interface through through a Series of radio towers that then transmits it into our meter data management system. So again, we're able to Observe meter readings on an hourly basis and and so that allows us to do a lot of things Before we only had Your bill was taking the current month in minus The last month and that was the amount of water that you assessed for billing all oftentimes our customers would question those bills and We've actually done some studies that looked at high bill complaints before AMI and hike Meter installs and high me and high bill complaints after AMI and it's interesting that prior to AMI about five percent Of our customers would complain and it within a given year over in particularly in summer months when people are using more water Those customers that have the advanced metering infrastructure that the new meters installed That that number drops literally to two percent It's a vocal two percent And and honestly not everyone calls but when your meter Bills go up it gets gets customers attention in some cases those meter readings jumped pretty considerably Just briefly one of the things that we discovered in the process of exchanging meters Is that we had a class of meters that under-registered significantly and more than we anticipated actually They stopped registering when Under high flow conditions such as when you would turn on an irrigation system The meters would the meters would register fine at normal use you know normal day to day use But the second you know the second a customer turned on an irrigation system They stopped registering so a number of our customers that have irrigation systems Honestly, we're getting free water for a long time. So the new meters that have been installed you know Catch that right so and and so when we a lot of our customers again We want to be transparent. We tried to help customers understand what's going on So we we've done things like put a calculator on on the website That helps customers to really understand how much water their irrigation systems are using So one of the things that I again my scientific nerdy brain goes it goes and looks at is how much water Does an irrigation system use and what we by design most irrigators will Design their systems to work to use 15 gallons a minute And so every minute your irrigation system is running. It's using 15 gallons of water So when you start thinking about how most customers are going to be using the irrigation systems Three hours a day two days a week just doing the math there you end up with about 16 CCF of water It's you know about 20,000 gallons of water that most irrigation systems are being they're using So if you've been a customer that's had an irrigation system and your summer water bills were in the four or five CCF per month range That that you know just doing the math you can you can see where you weren't being charged for that irrigation water So again, we wanted to help explain it But but one of the neat things about a mi into a question that I heard earlier Is how do you get a get your hands on that data? the current the data as it currently exists goes through from your meter into our Meter data management system and into a database where we can actually track and monitor and share the data right now It's it's sort of on a case-by-case basis if you have a question We're glad to pull that up for you share it with you right now It's email of probably a PDF and we can pretty some graphs and some nice reports for you When and when fully deployed with our portal that I think we're hoping that if I don't keep talking all night That Sandy will have an opportunity to Share with you what the portal look like the portal will allow you to see that that usage on a near real-time basis So basically Every six hours that meter will communicate with our system and upload that data Once a day is she will be uploading that into the our customer portal So about a day behind probably is what what you'll be looking at that able to see the data You'll be able to set up alerts That's what to let you know if you've got a leak or you can kind of set up a water budget If you want to use a certain amount of water and have it alert sent to you by your preferred method of communication You'll be able to do that and so whether that's email or text or or That sort of thing you'll be able to set up those as as preferences in your in your account. So We're really we're getting close to our portal launch and so I know a lot of you will be looking for that I'm really looking forward to it So that the data is is compelled compelling though Now one of the things that that the data can tell us is how much water you use in a given hour It doesn't really tell us how you're using the water just that the water is being used and and we've we've over time We've sort of learned to recognize patterns Irrigation systems usage has a pattern if somebody's using it appropriately, you know twice so twice a week and You know three to three hours a day You can you can see those patterns. You can see what time of day they're running how much water was used during that hour And one of the things that I think is really neat that we've been able to do in advance of the portal launch Is we can see when there's a leak or we know what we call continuous use? Is so when water is being used at a rate we the parameters we've set on our current algorithm is such that If we have water being used continuously at a rate about one cubic feet per Hour for more than 72 hours we create it's as pretty it's gets funneled to us in a report We're actually mailing customers An advisory to saying hey, you know, we've we've observed this Situation in your water consumption. You might want to take it and evaluate whether or not you have a leak and and on it We were seeing about 1.5 almost 2% at times of our customers at any given time have a leak And that's significant I mean so typically when when we get a high bill complaint We see one of three situations as we evaluate what's going on. We see potential for continuous use or leak We see irrigation use or a combination of the two Those are the primary things that we see when we're talking with customers about about high bills So a leak is something is and oftentimes from what customers that they've had their plumbers out They don't see a leak they've checked things out, but when what we often tell our customers is a leaking a toilet a running toilet a flapper valve that's not sealing well or a Float that's not properly seeding Those can use a quarter of a gallon a minute up to a gallon a minute And when you look at 1440 minutes a day a quarter gallon a minute a day is over 300 gallons times 30 days You're looking at a lot of water 9,000 10,000 gallons a month just on a small toilet leak if you got a gallon a minute leak You're looking at 43,000 gallons that can be in that they can go it can be used and we see that a lot and so so one of the things that Came out of our customer concerns last year early early in the deployment process was You know we didn't know and and and so we actually developed a One-time after meter exchange Credit for customers. So it's it allows you our customer to get used to the sort of new reality of What the impact is of irrigation usage on your water bill? We've now we've traditionally had two other billing adjustment credits that were made available one of those is an undefined high-use or a Leak adjust leak repair adjustments So we've had those kind of adjustments available to customers in the years past And and and really those were intended because we only were getting one meter reading a month and customers might not be aware of the fact that they had a leak until You know they get the water bill and then it's you know You might it might even go run the course of two months that before you really catch on that you had that leak so we want to be want to give our customers the option to To make those repairs and kind of sort of split that cost difference with you a little bit So those leaks those adjustments are available the and then the one time after meter exchange Adjustment something we did wanted to do to sort of soften the blow of the new meters But again, we you know making the data available helping you understand your water consumption is what we want to be about Again, it's it's What we don't want and it related to the affordability aspect of water is customers that are using a lot of water They're their bill being subsidized by customers that Are not so you want we want to be fair equitable in our solution and in the meters these meter replacements dollars to do that so a lot of information to me pretty quick and Think I'm pretty close to being done before we start to answer questions But just the AMI program I mentioned that it was a fundamental business transformation So there's the meter replacement aspect of it the data collection and data mining that we can do that the It's affecting our ability and influencing our ability to water monitor water loss So water loss is Something that we have to report to the state It's the amount of water we produce versus the what amount of water for which we collect Payment revenue and so we've been pretty negative that number has been pretty highly negative So we're under collecting But on the basis of amount of water we Produce so a lot a lot of customers that were complaining that you're these new meters are gonna make you know They're over registering well even with the new meter replacement. There's still a certain amount of water loss We're not over-collecting. We're not collecting more money for water than that which we're producing and it's been pretty significant So the metering that the technology that we're able to introduce allows us to affect our water loss and our That and the efficiency of an op it allows us to optimize our organization so we're Along many different facets We're developing a data lake that will help us to Inform our engineering sections or other other parts of the department and in terms of making data-driven decisions I mean that's that's what we're about in this It's just there's so much more to my H2O that I'd love to take time to talk about but I'm not even about clues about time It is but Kara Chris anything y'all would want to mention that I haven't that Let's get to the demos So so maybe two quick questions and then we'll let Marty show you some things and we'll take some more questions at that point Yes, ma'am So great question, I'm not an engineer I am a scientist and I've got an engineer over here, but let me try just real quick so The pressure in the system is there to make sure that we can get water to all the parts of the distribution system Where we need it your proximity to the either pump station or to the towers means that you are your pressure is going to be a little higher the plumbing code Requires that if your pressure at the meter is greater is 80 psi or greater it's your responsibility customer to install a pressure reducing valve to lower that pressure to below 80 psi so You know again, we're trying to meet system-wide demands With a district with a common distribution system That means that there are going to be some customers with higher pressure in their zones Or the customer is going to have lower pressure We have we have a certain a minimum level at which we are that we have to operate at And then we have them. There's a maximum But generally that that maximum is going to be set by the tower levels and over the pump pumps that are running again We have some areas that have 120 psi is kind of the highest I've seen but Again if it's higher than 80 customers are required to have and maintain a pressure reducing valve at on your side of the meter Yes So so Try to make a point and that is the the meter in the meter box really is for the city The pressure reducing valves should not be installed in the meter box there That's private plumbing and these be installed outside the meter box Yeah, along with that pressure reducing valve customers should have by plumbing code a Separate shut off valve to be able to manage the water at your at your premises a lot of customers have them Don't know the where they are they the houses have been there for a lot of years They've been covered up with dirt or they're in the flower beds and people just can't find them But we really don't want you in the meter box We at we accept and understand and if you in an emergency situation you've got to use that that curb stops to shut off your water But that's not that's not what it's for and invite by city code You shouldn't be in that box. So if you have questions about your pressure You know, we can we can tell you what the ambient pressure is in your area, but at your specific house Really, it's gonna be a private plumber that's gonna need to assess that for you and I get one. Yes, sir I Yeah, sure we can do that and if you'd like we can give it to you councilmember Williams and You can distribute it, but just to talk about system pressure in general So you I mentioned to this pump station over here ultimacy pump station installed in the 70s We have a russum ranch pump station installed in the 40s. There's the new McCart pump stations installed in 2006 russum ranch and ultimacy the pump stations that Have been used historically to fill the Armstrong ranch tank. That's tank was installed in the 60s So really the distribution pressure within this area has been Pretty much the same for decades But the distribution pressure is controlled by the elevation of the tank So those pump stations pump up to the tank to fill up the tank So there's some slight pressure Differentials between if the level of the tank is high or the level of the tank is low There's usually 35 feet of working ball working height within a tank So there's minor changes depending on what the pumping rate is and also what the tank elevations are But what we can do is we can provide a a pressure contour map that will basically Factor in the ground surface elevation to give you a contours of what the system pressure will be in this area All right So Marty, I think we're going to turn it over to you or do you have anything else Jerry? All right, so this is our demo of some of the data and how we can utilize it Thank You Chris again. My name is Marty Barker. I'm the a and my administrator here for the city of Fort Worth I can't say that I've been with the city for 20 years because I haven't I'm fairly new to the area, but I've been in the water utility business for the past 30 years So I've been around this a lot and I've seen a lot and this is actually a second AMI system that I've been involved with So I'm just thrilled to be a part of this and I appreciate you coming out tonight I understand things have changed for you since that new meter came in and That's that impacts you greatly and that's why you're here tonight And we want to be able to help you understand What this does for you what this does as far as water consumption analysis how we can see it how we can monitor it and Then you can make decisions based on what you see and at the end of this sandy will come up and talk to you a little bit about the Portal that again is something that you'll have in your hands. It's a tool That's going to help you as you monitor your water usage Again, I've been around the water utility business for 30 years and that's why I'm excited about AMI because Again, what was mentioned earlier about Jerry had mentioned with readings You get one reading one month and one the next month and that's how much water you use But with the AMI system we have a tool and you will soon have a tool that you can see your hourly consumption And see how much water you're actually using when it comes to your irrigation when it comes to inside usage And if you have what we call constant usage, which could potentially be a leak that warns you of that So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take you through some slides that I have and these are pictures graphs demonstrations of hourly consumption and What I've taken is I've just randomly pulled from different customers that we have within the system that Will show a typical Summertime billing period so again our billing period is 30 days give or take a day or so But usually it's a 30 days worth of water usage that you get billed for and that's what I want to demonstrate for you and show you and different aspects of what I want to show you is Patterns in usage that you'll see based on this chart that comes from irrigation systems and I don't know how many of you here tonight have an irrigation system But usually when you set it up the water comes on at a certain time Every day that it's programmed for a certain period of time and then shuts off and you'll see that in this demonstration of Irrigation patterns of people's water coming on at a certain time and the amount of the water that's being used and then with that as we go Through this I'll show you With the water meter the new meter that's in place and that irrigation pattern or that consumption pattern that you'll see and the total consumption that was used during that time period and then compare it to the same time period last year and maybe even the year before of The consumption that was used for that homeowner with the old meter and we'll be able to do some comparative analysis so let me let me open up my computer here and We'll take a look at these and Again, this is going to be something similar to what you'll see With the portal So this is our first one and I just want to demonstrate again This is and I apologize if it's a little small a little weak or hard to see But you'll see from August the 3rd to September the 1st and then this particular one it does Show an hourly consumption again It's going to be hourly and we bill in cubic hundreds of cubic feet But this graph and your portal will show consumption in single cubic feet And or gallons as well. You can see it in gallons But in our system what we have we see it in cubic feet because we're really trying to compare apples to apples of what we build a customer And then what we see Granulated down from hundreds of cubic feet down to a single cubic foot so to just Just review on that a hundred cubic feet is approximately seven hundred forty eight gallons of water One cubic foot is approximately seven point four eight gallons of water So for this particular customer You can see the spikes in usage up to almost a hundred and eighty cubic feet in one hour so you can see them each time consistent and Oftentimes again, that's from irrigation systems because we all know that if we run our own sprinkler systems with the hose We may run it for 20 minutes one day and 45 minutes the next and forget and run it the third day and leave it on for an hour It's just all over the place, but when we have an irrigation system We can set it and it make sure that it's consistent and this is what it shows in this particular demonstration Sometimes I can So let me show you the next one So here's here's a customer as you can see there's multiple spikes here Which indicates they're watering quite often from a sprinkler system And what I wanted to demonstrate is again Here's here's their bill the billing periods from July 14th to August the 16th with the total consumption used of 34.2 ccf Now this was at the new meter because the new meter was installed on the 28th of May and this is coming after Again, this is the heart of irrigation season. We all know it's a little warm in July and in August So water is going to be used But then what I wanted to show is the previous two years same billing period same time frame For the August bill of 2020 they use 9.2 and for 2019 they use 6.4 Probably didn't change anything with their irrigation system or with their yard. It's probably pretty close to the same But it does give you a comparison of what? The old meter as Jerry spoke earlier the old meter that was and has been and I just wanted to say real briefly in my 30 years of Being in the water utility. That's all I've known as positive displacement meters So when I came to the city of Fort Worth and I learned of the multi-jet master meter that was in place It was fairly new to me and learned again. It was more designed for residential use and not for irrigation use So to me positive displacement has been all that I've known and I've been around at my whole life in the water utility business and It's proven to be a rock solid meter It's a positive displacement. Absolutely. Okay, so let me keep going because we're short on time Again, I just wanted to do these these examples of what I found here's another typical residential and again July 21st to August the 16th Total consumption was 48.2 ccf Compared to their previous two years at that same time of 6.6 and 11.2 You can see the big spikes in consumption and we all know that it's coming from irrigation We do have a couple of systems and one of our system with it does show a temperature Pattern along with that and it does demonstrate that yes But again, that's a lot of times a home owners depending on their controller a Lot of the older controllers do have some of them have the old radon sensors that are out there Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don't Newer controllers that often times can come on your phone and as a phone app those take in a weather Pattern as well and when weather systems come in that they shut your system off completely and That's amazing thing to be able to utilize this particular Customer as you can see these they're small because there's so many of them But look at the total consumption 147.5 ccf Wow, that's a lot of water So they called and we're concerned about their bill which I understand I would do it's like what's going on here so this is for July 14th through August the 12th and They called around the time that they received their bill which is about the middle of August and So there's notes on their account to say well, we've noticed you've been watering quite a bit You might want to cut back on your watering So we look at their consumption history for the next billing period and what do we find? They did just that So you can see where they really ramped it down here and then completely shut it off here So 30 days August 12th through September 11th when the irrigation systems almost shut off Consumption is 11.3 ccf So you can see how much irrigation can use in total water consumption one more slide and This is one where the system again the beauty of the system it picks up constant usage Potential leak Sometimes those leaks can come in our toilets when we don't even know it and it runs down the drain and we never see it It we don't know it exists, but it happens and a lot of water can be used This system gives us that ability and that's what the portal will also help you do Set up alarms for yourself. So if you have constant water usage for six seven hours straight Then you say wow, that's not typical. I shouldn't be using water like that on a regular basis You'll be notified and the beauty of that as you get notified sooner rather than later when you receive your bill It's like why is my bill so high? Well, I had a leak for the last 30 days. Well here You'll be able to pick it up for much sooner So as you can see almost over half of their billing period they had this leak They learned of it got it taken care of But their total bill usage was 46 cubic feet or 46 CCF for that billing period and again Most of that is attributed to because they had constant usage There's some irrigation spikes early on but most of it's constant usage So the next billing period after they get or not full billing period because it starts at October the 8th So I just took from October the 8th up till today And you can see they had a little bit of consumption here for some sort of irrigation But other than that they got that constant usage fixed and over 13 days not quite a billing period yet They've only used 4.8 CCF So you can really see what happens in usage when you have a constant Leak, we don't really like to call it a leak because we don't know Where water is being used all we know that there's constant usage every hour on the hour so again, this is Just some examples of what consumption analysis looks like for different customers Again, the the most water really when it comes down to it that you use that we don't realize how much is being used is through our irrigation systems and Once we learn that we can then modify that make adjustments There's better controllers out there. Maybe that you can look into I Have one on my phone that I do monitor my sprinkler system and it does tell me if there's a weather pattern coming I got rain it shuts off. I'm not using it tells me how much water actually saved by not having it on So it's there's just so much new technology out there that really helps us and that's why I'm excited about this That's why I like this it gives you guys a tool to say how can I manage my water better? I can still have a green yard But maybe I water a little less a little less often a little different time of the day and I can still manage that and Make it what I want it to be and yet conserve again as Chris talked about this the AMI the Mike's 2.0 project really Stims a lot from how can we be good stewards of our water? How can we promote conservation? How can we really monitor and watch that closely? And this system really does that for us and it helps us So we have questions by all means yes, sir When the usage went down with new meters I don't think went down, but we have examples of where it's pretty much stayed the same And a lot of that was when customers that didn't have outside irrigation. They really didn't see much difference Yeah, so I was just gonna Repeat just exactly what Kara said there the biggest predictor in terms of the water usage is whether right You know when it's a hot dry folks just turn on their systems or use outdoor You know this the walking sprinklers and just really have no Concept of how much water they're using the slide that that Marty put up there that showed the the continuous use Say again Rates for Gotcha sounds like wastewater water so so We charge Commercial customers their wastewater is the same I get there We charge wastewater based on the amount of water they use if you get fused 10 gallons of water We're gonna bail your wastewater on for 10 gallons residential customers We use what's called a winter quarter average to set what your wastewater rate is So we know that customers in the in the summer months are using a lot of water and for irrigation purposes And in some cases 98% of the water used in the summer months in most cases that have High bills you hit with irrigation systems 98% of the water used in summer months is is irrigation So we don't want you to pay an irrigation bill based on water that's going on your I mean We don't want you paying sewer bills based on how much water is going on your lawn So what we do is we take those winter quarter months when most likely irrigation systems are turned off and we use that period of time as a It's a study to it to really set the rate that we're going to be charging you for the rest of year for for wastewater Every customer should be paying a wastewater charge that that if most customers are going to be in the 10,500 gallons up again, I think it's about five five to six CCF Is what your wastewater rate should be if you're at a hundred dollars a month new one wastewater We need to probably look at that AT&T bus Yeah, let's let's let me look at that. I'll give you my card. Give me a shout Well, and I'm gonna I can Absolutely bet we have all of our calls recorded to go in our call center I will listen to them if they're when there's coaching opportunities. I want to address that Well, we'll listen to those calls and we'll look for some coaching opportunities Let's the main thing is let's get your your costs fixed and then I'll certainly address the the customer concerns But yeah, if you're at a hundred dollars on your wastewater for residential We need to we need to address that and we will we'll make that right for you Great question So obviously this is new technology and it's a process that incorporates numerous different systems, right? So we are incorporating our billing system data We've got our payment processor that has to be a partner in this so it's numerous vendors that are coordinated So we actually kicked off this project About 18 months ago and we have been working on it since then We have gone through and we're in our second round of final acceptance testing But it's really critical that everything is working properly, especially because it involves Customer wallets that will transfer from an old payment system to a new one So we want to make sure that your bill is represented properly that you're not having to reset your payment methods That all auto pays transfer correctly. So that testing period is really critical. So we have a weekly call with our vendor Everything has been configured. It is testing and then correcting any any issues that arise from that testing at this stage Right because the portals not running yet Right so the idea is that the portal is the tool that is available to all of our customers to see their data And yes The intent was to have that to you in late spring when we went through that first round of user acceptance testing It wasn't ready to go and so we have had to go back and work with our vendors and ensure that it is Where it needs to be to give you the data that you need and the accuracy and protection of payments So we can certainly work with specific customers if you've got some some questions again if you want to look at your data monthly or But where we are very close But you know it's hard to put in a date on it because again We want to make sure that we can meet that date and that our vendor is providing everything we need So we really need to have a firm schedule in order to be able to tell you that so what we have done is we've prepared all the marketing materials They're ready to go. We have Videos on how to use the system how to access it those kinds of things so everything is ready to go Once we can confirm that the data is accurate and that what the customer sees and Sandy's gonna walk through what it what it will look like That's what triggers the notifications to our customers and Sandy you can speak to that a little bit more in terms of What that rollout looks like so there is a full rollout to educator customers and let you know it's available Right and Sandy you might want to speak to that a little bit, but we do have everything Ready to go. We just don't want to send anything out in terms of providing a date If we're not a hundred percent sure that we're comfortable releasing it So let's let Sandy to speak to the overall communications plan and share a little bit about the portal Trust me. We are going to make a huge splash Pun intended When when this portal is you'll get mailings it'll be all over social media It'll be bill inserts and it will be ads You'll know it When I'm showing you is I Have been part of the testing of the portal and this was the account that they gave me to do the testing on it So that's what you are seeing a test account and this is the main page. You can see You'll be able to pay the bill There's some redundancy if you don't want to register and get Into the portal itself to have it to operate it. You can just go to this web page and you'll be able to pay it We have our a lot of FAQs our terms of services there and our private policy So I'm going to sign on and we'll go to this page and we'll have tabs across the front This is the home page on this. Please ignore this guy's name and address it's not real anyway, but He doesn't have any an account to it this time, but you can several places where you can go you can view your bill from here No, I'm just showing you some of the features, but this your bill will show up on here like this, okay? And I'll get to that. You'll have your account where you have all your account information you and you'll have a To the left on the side going down your payment your All your settings and stuff your notification preferences that you can set you'll go here to set your notification preferences How you want to be contacted and I'll show you where you can set up the alert as well Billing I'm just kind of going from tab to tab You'll be able to link several accounts like if you have a couple different accounts You won't have to go to a different portal page that you'll be able to pay all your bills If you have several different water account like if you for rental houses and you pay or you pay for an elderly parent You can watch their bills and pay their bills for them if you're a caretaker. You'll be able to manage all that My test account unfortunately doesn't have the hourly showing they took that one away from me But this is what it will look I like This is on a monthly basis. There will be a Tab here that will show hourly And this is one of the things Kara was talking about we want a perfect We're we're supposed to have the weather Temperatures and stuff that will go on top of this graph too that she was referring to And this is where you'll set your usage alerts If you don't want your bill to go over a certain amount You'll be able to set your bill amounts and that we will send you an alert when You're getting close to that amount We will also do that for your usage if you only want to why are you laughing? Well, no, we don't turn it off you're turning it off You can set your usage amounts that how much you want to use that month like say you don't want to get we have some customers who Operate on very little water and they don't want to go over a certain amount every month And they'll be able to set that and we'll send them alert when we're they're getting close to that amount So what do you just put drinking water for the last four days of the month? No, that's up to you how you want to manage. This is a conservation part of a conservation program Well You would have to go back and look at your usage to see how you're using the water, you know Maybe maybe your irrigation system switch to a different setting and you're not realizing It's going off one night And when you thought you had turned it off for that night That will show up on the hourly you'll be able to go in and say why I don't have that set for Wednesday night as my water running You know, we do have some cases where people steal water from their neighbors Yeah So you'll be able to see like in the middle of the night And it's just a matter of looking at how you use your water That's up to you. We're we can't tell you how to use your water Yeah, you know maybe to combine more clothes and one Load of wash instead of doing three loads of wash things like that We will have not in this rollout because we do want to get it out We will have conservation tips Well, we will have conservation, you know information about our conservation programs that you will be able to access on the portal You'll be able to communicate with us and get that kind of information. Yes This is just a real high Yeah, I know I was just saying this is just a real because I know we're running out of time, right Jared. Yeah, I'm sorry What's your question? Okay, my life does not revolve around the forward water department And I support the US Post Office. Can I get a monthly bill period in the mail? Yeah, you still get a mail Yeah, you can choose to go paperless But if you still want the bill you will still get the bill Yeah, okay. Oh, yeah, I'm the same way. Yeah I would just like to say that just over the last few days. I've been dealing with the last three months being very high I think I'm a victim of the irrigation not registered previously to this Well, one thing I do want to say is every representative I spoke with at the water department has done an exceptional job And I want to commend that department. Thank you All right, let's give it up for our water team. They really answered a lot of questions today so So the the giveaways and the chairs are yours if you see an extra one in the chair give it to a kid that you know in the Neighborhood, I'm sure they would really love it Kindle and I have taken a lot of notes also on the issues that you'll raise. We've heard about water pressure We've heard about wastewater And as many of y'all were interested in the lead pipe replacement program as well So and we are also doing our due diligence to try to address some of your concerns from a council level Where possible? Also, our water department team will still be here after today's conversation So if you would like to connect with them about some more specific issues related to you know, your residents They'll certainly be here to exchange contact information so that y'all can connect later on. Yes, sir Are we Yes, sir, they'll be staying here after the event so you can ask them some technical questions as well Well definitely thank y'all again for coming out like I said These listening circles are really designed so that we can connect y'all in the neighborhood directly with the people Who can help you with some of the issues that you're facing today. It's about water We'll have another listening circle here in a couple weeks. That'll be on transportation and public works Kindle am I correct in that that? Listening circle will be at Hallmark Baptist Church So it'll be on Thursday, November 4th from 6 to 7 p.m. At Hallmark Baptist Church. That'll be on That conversation will be in partnership with the transportation and public works department. We'll be talking about Speeding and we'll be talking about traffic infrastructure And all things related to that will also be talking about some of the infrastructure improvements that we're making All throughout the district and so if you've had issues or if you have ideas with that topic Please come out to that listening circle as well again listening circles are designed to connect you all directly with the Experts in the city of Fort Worth that can help you solve some of the issues that you and your neighborhood are facing So the more that you can come out to our listening circles the better we can get at solving the issues that the neighborhoods are facing Again, thank you all so much for attending tonight I hope that we were able to answer many of your questions And if we weren't please connect with us after I will be sticking around with my district director Kindle lock and we'll also share our information with you as well for those of you are on social media Please follow our council page. It's at jared Williams TX. That's where we give a lot of updates About these type of events. Also, please feel free to share your information with us I think there's a sign-in sheet flowing around We also have email updates and we do robo calls so you can hear my voice every now and then Personally inviting you to events like this. So again, thank y'all and we look forward to seeing you out the next one Thank y'all take care