Nevermind that the original project was supposed to cost $50 million and be completed in 2003. Then in 2006, it was guesstimated the project would cost $75 million and be completed in 2008.
So, here we are in 2008, and the Department of Public Works wants another $3.5 million:
Now, the Department of Public Works and Engineering is asking for another $3.5 million even as officials acknowledge that more than 200,000 of the devices installed by a Washington-based vendor have had to be replaced. The city has more than 400,000 water customers.
City officials originally projected the automated system would pay for itself by 2003; they now say it will not reach that point until 2012.
Mindful of past problems the city has had implementing new technology and software systems — some of which led them to take legal action against the contractor — the City Council tabled a vote on the $3.5 million request Wednesday.
[snip]
Public Works spokesman Alvin Wright said many of the water meter devices the city bought broke due to “water intrusion on a mass scale.
“At the time of the original implementation, the application of this technology in a water utility was brand new,” he said, noting that Houston was the first city to implement an automated in-ground water meter system. “The industry has advanced significantly since that time with several generations of the product having come and gone.”
Brilliant. New in-ground technology being used in Houston.
Wright said the department will recoup that amount and an additional $1.4 million in savings by 2012 and begin saving $4.5 million a year after that. Most of that is expected to come from needing fewer workers to manually record monthly water usage from meters.
Really! They promise this time!! What can possibly go wrong?
Last time we voted on this, we were told the technology had improved,” Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck said Wednesday, calling the number of devices that failed “staggering.”
“We need to know has it truly improved and is the failure rate down to something that is reasonable.”
There’ll be lots of happy-talk and assurances, plus the argument that it’s too late (and too costly) to go back to the old system, and council will vote yes. And in another year or so, we’ll see another story about how DPW needs another few million to make it work, along with a new target date for savings.
Typical government.
Ubu Roi adds: I have never been a fan of this project from the start. It was rushed into by managers who wanted to look good to the previous administration, regardless of the cost, which they wouldn’t be (and aren’t) around to bear. As I’ve written before, here and elsewhere, the original projections were unrealistic, the technology untested, the application unprecedented, and the plan was completely flawed. Everything since then has been B’rer Rabbit trying to fight the Tar Baby.
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That said, some of the criticism coming from the council and press is itself flawed. The first wide-scale installations started in 1999, and those meters were expected to last no more than 7 to 10 years. Public Works and Engineering reached nearly 99% installation across the city, which took years longer than expected, because the transmitters failed (or were damaged) at very high rate. Because of that, the initial installation stretched into the beginning of the first replacement cycle, causing council-members and the public alike to see them as one and the same. This is a mistake.
The technology has improved. The newer meters benefit from improvements in batteries, better engineering, and stronger transmitters. They’re more robust, easier to install, and more damage resistant. Thanks to that and a lot of work by the city’s contractor, ITRON, the department’s efforts to replace them finally exceeded the rate of failure. The actual number of failed meters leveled off approximately three months ago, and finally began declining. Despite that, there are still over 200,000 meters that have to be read manually, or estimated. If the council holds up the contract, there won’t be any meters in stock to replace the faulty ones (nor a supply for new installations), allowing the failure rate to get ahead of the replacements again, and stalling commercial and residential development.
There are still major flaws however. Damage resistant is not damage proof, and meters don’t all sit in immaculate manicured lawns. They sit in and next to driveways, roads, ditches, sidewalks and alleyways. They’re stepped on, run over, hit by lawnmowers, and subject to constant pressure from heavy, often water-soaked soil.
Unfortunately, PW&E continues to be short-sighted in two areas: the protective boxes meters sit in, and the number of technicians employed to deal with problems. The city continues to place electronic meters in the cheapest possible meter boxes, which are nothing more than a sturdy plastic container; sturdy being a relative term.
Nor have there ever been any regulations to prohibit meter placements in locations hazardous to the box and meter. Broken lids are not the problem; it’s the box itself. Once the box’s sides are cracked, the lid cannot remain in place, making the cable vulnerable to being cut, or the transmitter can be crushed because the lid is out of place. The result is that hundreds of thousands of meters are inadequately protected from the elements and hazards around them.
Other cities using the same meters protect them by placing them in concrete boxes with reinforced lids. Expensive? Yes. Superior in terms of preventing problems and providing better service? Definitely. By pinching pennies, the city has fueled an ongoing “problem generator” that keeps on giving customers grief and costing the city more in the long run.
The second issue is that the city employs too few technicians to service the meters, replace the boxes, locate lost and uncovered meters, and perform all the necessary maintenance. At current staffing levels, it is doubtful that the city could meet even the presumably reduced demand from installing reinforced meter boxes. It has no chance of meeting the current demands, resulting in the constant robbing of Peter, then shortchanging Paul.
The council has three choices: It can force the department to abandon electronic meter reading, then staff the department with enough meter readers and inspectors to do all the necessary jobs; it can approve the contract and demand the department be staffed properly, adding funding to protect the meters with the more expensive boxes; or it can just approve the contract as is, leaving the citizens of Houston to muddle through.
Is the bureaucracy to blame for all this mess? In a manner, yes. Give a manager no incentive to deliver bad news, such as “fixing this problem is going to require significant operational changes and greater funding” along with every possible incentive to muddle along and hope for the best, and that is exactly what is going to happen.
Question: Who sets the incentives for the city bureaucrats?
Answer: Leadership always comes from the top. Typical government, indeed.
