Lakeview, Oregon
Municipality
AMI Water Meter Solution
Background
A revitalizing and economically growing community located in the heart of eastern Oregon, the Town of Lakeview is located 350 miles south of Portland next to the northern borders of California and Nevada. It is known as the “Tallest Town in Oregon” due to its elevation of 4,798 feet. With a stable population of 2,400 for the past 80 years, poverty has actually declined from 15% to 6% in just the past ten years. The Town’s economy is based on agriculture, lumber production, and government activities.
Challenge
Lakeview was faced with the common problem of old, outdated, and broken clean water infrastructure. A substantial number of the Town’s water meters were improperly functioning causing water loss, inaccurate data, and subsequent billing inaccuracies for its customers. The Town sought a way for its community to fund and implement a comprehensive water metering system serving both residential and commercial needs.
Project Description
The Town of Lakeview chose Infrastructure as a Service® with Sustainability Partners to secure funding, facilitate installation of meters, and provide a plan for ongoing maintenance of the turnkey solution. The project comprised 1,671 smart water meters, software migration and staff training, integration with the billing system, ongoing monitoring, and maintenance.
As the project progressed, the scope expanded to include replacement of water mains at the roads to each meter site. This was accomplished easily with an Addendum to the existing contract.
Impact
Working with Sustainability Partners, the Town now benefits from a comprehensive, modern, smart water meter system that provides accuracy, acoustic leak detection, remote reading, and a host of other intelligent features. With this modern technology, capable of early leak detection, the Town will also be warned about possible leaks before bursts, saving time, money, and resources. The system enables proactive customer service with real-time data.
Going further, the expanded scope to replace service lines with robustly engineered, reliable infrastructure provides the Lakeview community many short and long-term benefits including increased safety and environmental protections as potentially hazardous conditions are avoided.
Strong service lines decrease the number of water disruptions to residents and businesses, and remove the burden of unforeseen bursts or breaks leading to costly damage and consequential repairs. The replacement pipes are built for extreme durability with longer-lasting use as compared to traditional pipe materials. They are also more resistant to freeze-breaks caused by extreme weather conditions, which are prevalent in this geographical area. Through this concerted effort with SP, the Town not only secures present day needs but also lays a solid foundation for fostering a resilient future by safeguarding resources and enhancing the quality of life for its community now and for generations to come.
“Working Sustainability Partners as a whole has been great. They have been very flexible and easy to work with from the start. This water meter and service line project would not have been possible without the help from Sustainability Partners.”
Scott Langlum
Special Project Director