$2.6 million BCWA meter bid under scrutiny

Former employee, meter company rep believe authority is wasting millions; vote looms Thursday

By Ted Hayes
Posted 8/24/16

Two water insiders say the Bristol County Water Authority is selling its 17,000-plus customers short and may be wasting millions, as its board of directors prepares to enter into a $2.6 million …

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$2.6 million BCWA meter bid under scrutiny

Former employee, meter company rep believe authority is wasting millions; vote looms Thursday

Posted

Two water insiders say the Bristol County Water Authority is selling its 17,000-plus customers short and may be wasting millions, as its board of directors prepares to enter into a $2.6 million contract to purchase thousands of new water meters.

On Thursday, the BCWA’s board of directors is expected to vote on whether to award a contract to Neptune, a water meter manufacturer, to replace the agency’s aging meters and the transmission equipment that transmits the meter data to headquarters. Installing the 17,000-plus devices will likely cost another $700,000 to $1.4 million, bringing the total replacement cost up to $3.3 to $4 million.

But as the vote looms, alarms are being raised both by a former BCWA employee and a sales representative from a competing water meter company which submitted a lower bid.

Brian Mellor, the BCWA’s former union head who retired earlier this month, believes the authority could upgrade its metering system much more efficiently and cheaply, saving more than $2 million off the contract price.

“I’m not a disgruntled former employee,” said Mr. Mellor. “I just want to save the ratepayers money. We’ve got to stop them spending this money.”

“From a monetary standpoint, this does not make monetary sense,” added Dan Johnson, the New England Account Manager for Badger Meter.

All of the BCWA’s water meters were manufactured by Badger, but the meters transmit data in two different ways, requiring the BCWA to run two billing systems concurrently. The system is aging, and as BCWA has upgraded its computer systems, officials determined they would be much better off normalizing and standardizing the data collection system.

In addition, BCWA Executive Director Pam Marchand said the two transmission systems are old and are starting to fail. Replacing the batteries that power them is difficult and cost-prohibitive, she said, so rather than update failing and aging equipment and replace batteries as needed at a relatively high cost, she said BCWA officials determined the best thing to do was start fresh, with new meters and transmission equipment throughout the BCWA’s coverage area.

“It’s not worth it” to keep the old units in place, she said.

Mr. Mellor disagrees, saying the old system can be upgraded at a much lower cost than a full replacement.

Earlier this year, BCWA put out a request for proposals and invited bids from meter companies. Officials met with prospective bidders prior to the due date to help educate them on the BCWA’s system and needs, and hired a consultant to help streamline the process. Officials eventually ended up with two bids: From Neptune and Badger, which submitted a joint bid with transmitter firm Itron. Neptune’s bid came in at $2,596,151, while the Badger/Itron bid came in slightly lower at $2,585,668.

On Thursday, July 21, the BCWA board of directors met and listened to authority operations manager Kenneth Booth talk on the relative merits of the Neptune system, which he recommended over the bid submitted by Badger/Itron. During his talk, he mentioned speculation that Badger’s days as a company could be numbered.

“Badger … is pretty much up for sale, potentially up for sale,” he said. “So if we entered into a contract in that situation in two years, they might be out of the meter business.”

Neptune, he said, is solid.

“I’ve used their product, Neptune products, before,” he said, referring to previous employment at other water operators.

He also said that Neptune products carry a 20-year warranty, not the 15 years provided by Badger, and are more easily upgradeable as technology changes.

Later, Mr. Johnson took issue with Mr. Booth’s take on Badger’s health, saying it prejudiced the board and in any case was inaccurate.

At the meeting, board members, including John Jannitto of Warren and Frank Sylvia of Bristol, had questions about the makeup of the bid and whether the BCWA would owe the entire contract price upfront. Ms. Marchand said bid details would be gathered and brought before the board at the Thursday, Aug. 25 meeting.

Mr. Mellor said he hopes board members will reconsider later this week. He believes the BCWA could even do away with the bid package altogether, as replacing the aging transmission equipment instead of entering into a new contract would cost millions less. While acknowledging that many of the transmitters — also referred to as radios — currently in use need to be replaced, Mr. Johnson added that, yes, system upgrades could be made for substantially less than the $2.6 million BCWA is proposing to spend.

“Yes, (some) radios need to be replaced. But this can be accomplished for less than $300,000.”

And while BCWA officials do not want to use a “cloud-based” data collection and storage system with the next generation of meters, Mr. Johnson said that if they do choose to go that route, “then BCWA will not need to upgrade their computer system and they will be able to read meters using tablets at a cost of less than $5,000 vs. laptops, which can cost upwards of $15,000.”

“Why are you going to spend $2.6 million, plus installation, when you can spend $350,000 and complete the system that’s already in place?” Mr. Johnson asked.

On Monday, Ms. Marchand said she is satisfied that the Neptune system is the way to go, and she said there will be a lengthy presentation on the meter issue at Thursday night’s meeting.

“We considered both bids,” she said. They were both looked at and thoroughly vetted.”

Why, then, is Mr. Mellor raising alarms?

“Well, he’s a former employee,” she said. “Left just last week.”

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