A close-knit community with a small-town atmosphere, the City of Litchfield is located along the picturesque Saint Joseph River in southern Michigan. The rich and productive farm area was first inhabited by Pottawattamie Indians before settlers arrived in the early nineteenth century. Litchfield was incorporated as a township in 1877 and as a city in 1970.

The city is a community where neighbors know neighbors. It thrives on a wide base of volunteers who help maintain, promote, and develop the city. Litchfield has also been an active location for economic development, supporting nearly 50 businesses downtown and in the 300-acre industrial park south of the city.

Cost-effective, efficient solution
Litchfield maintains a water distribution system of approximately 540 services for its population of over 1,400 residents and the substantial number of people working in the industrial park. The water system pumps 180,000 to 250,000 gallons each day, with a capacity to pump 1,500,000 gallons per day.

The city has always prided itself on being innovative and willing to try the latest, greatest technology. Last year it began looking for an automated meter reading (AMR) system to replace its aging manual read system.

"In this day and age, local governments need to do things very efficiently and effectively," says Doug Terry, city manager. "So we began looking at different systems, comparing the cost of purchasing a new system and what it could do for us against the annual cost of our existing system."

The city initially considered a drive-by radio frequency system, but decided that a fixed network radio frequency system best met their needs. "We spoke with different marketing representatives and government officials from other communities and determined that it would be most cost-effective to skip a mobile system and move right to the fixed-network system," explains Terry. "There's virtually no labor involved. For a mobile system, you need a laptop and someone to drive the truck."

Fixed-based network systems also offer significant advantages over the existing manual read system. With the fixed network, there's no need to send readers to go get readings. The Badger® GALAXY® system employs high-powered transmitters using an economic network of signal repeaters and data collectors to send reading data automatically to a desktop computer.

Using the old system, each meter was read manually and entered into a book. Each quarter, it took three meter readers 24 total man hours to read all 540 meters. Readings then had to be manually entered into the computer, compounding the possibility of human error.

"There's no comparison," says Jill Adams, city treasurer. "GALAXY is simply superb. Readings are more accurate and take only a few seconds instead of many hours. This saves manpower that could be better used elsewhere, while eliminating errors."

Smooth installation and implementation
After carefully evaluating fixed-networks from a number of different suppliers, Litchfield selected Badger Meter’s GALAXY system.

Installation began in February 2007 and is expected to be complete in 2008. To date, three-quarters of the meters have been replaced.

The installation process has gone very smoothly. A data collector was installed on the City of Litchfield office building. All transmitters are within a one-mile radius of the data collector, so no repeaters have been necessary.

"We originally thought we'd have to install transmitters outside of the buildings and would need one repeater for a town our size," says Dan Wooden, superintendent public works. "Once we began installation, we found the system works so well we can install the transmitters inside of buildings and have yet to find a place where we need to put a repeater antenna up. That's cut installation time in half."

Using the Badger GALAXY system, the city now collects data every six hours instead of every quarter. The central office computer is programmed to download data from the collector each morning into GALAXYnet software, which generates standard and automatic reports. Data is also easily exported into the utility billing software program.
Once all meters are installed, the city will bill monthly for water and sewer usage. "This will improve cash flow," says Adams. "With the manual system, we didn't have the manpower to read meters on a monthly basis."

And even though only one reading per month is needed for billing purposes, daily reads provide more timely and accurate information to monitor water usage. This helps city staff resolve billing issues and detect leaks and tampering.

Leak detection circuitry is built into every Badger GALAXY endpoint, so utilities can notify customers of suspected leakage. "This saves our customers money because we can detect leaks much quicker than reading quarterly," says Wooden. "We've notified customers who didn't think they had a leak, but when they check their basement or crawl space, sure enough they do. They really appreciate the call. Leak detection is a real popular feature."

Tamper detection warnings alert the utility if something is amiss with the meter. "It helps us increase our revenue because we can fix meters as soon as they quit working or are tampered with, instead of after three months," says Wooden. "We're not forced to estimate usage."

Terry would definitely recommend the system to other utilities. "GALAXY is out of this world," he laughs. "Seriously though, the system saves us time, is more accurate, and is beneficial to customers. Installation is simple. The system is very durable. We anticipate that GALAXY will give us many years of accurate, reliable service." 

About the author: Kevin Orfield is a freelance writer based in Milwaukee, WI.