Ask Larry

Ask Larry

A Q&A Column with TRWA Technical Assistance Director Larry Bell

Q: What best practices should we follow when customers request a line location on their property?

A: It’s important to have a clear idea of where exactly the customer needs a line location before you begin line location work. Many hard feelings and legal costs have been racked up due to “he said, she said” when there was no documentation to back up what type of work was to be provided and where the work was to take place. There is no telling how many times something like this exact scenario has happened at systems I worked for before I started with TRWA and how many I’ve seen since I’ve been here. In general, customers or landowners should provide the utility with some type of description of where they are intending to excavate, dig post holes, bulldoze the top of a hill, cut a ditch, or i nstall a pond dam. This is especially true if the landowner has a lot of frontage or the system’s line is located through the middle of their property. It’s just common sense for the utility to know where to start and stop locating the water line. Aerial views of most all properties in the world are now available online. You might consider printing out a copy of their tract of land and showing that the water main is located within a filed easement on their property or off their property in the public right of way. This may resolve some of their questions and your staff’s questions about the water main being in the way of new construction. Have the customer place “X” on the spot where they intend to do any excavation or activity, and sign and date the printed map. That way, the system has a specific request in written form if the customer performs work elsewhere on the property and claims the system failed to accurately locate its lines. Some systems have made several trips out to where they thought the locate work was to be done, only to find out there were no marks, ribbons, flags, or paint on the ground showing the area where the customer needs the work done. Other systems may have marked their lines several times only to have the owner claim that it was not in the right spot. In some cases, utilities have had to resort to the extreme measure of assessing a service trip charge if the owner makes too many line locate requests without giving the system adequate instruction on the specific area in which the work is needed. Ultimately, systems are not in the guessing business, and they need to know things like which side of the water meter, how far from the water meter or gate valve, or some other landmark on the property so they can accurately locate lines and prevent damage due to various construction and other projects.

Q: We expect some new development in our service area soon, but we are already near full capacity with our current water supply. Can we refuse service to new applicants to avoid going over capacity? If not, what can we do to acquire new supply?

A: For your first question, the answer is “no,” a CCN holder cannot deny service to any qualified applicant within their service area. As Trent discusses in this month’s “Keep it Legal” column, a CCN gives a utility a monopoly within its service area which comes coupled with a duty to serve qualified applicants within those boundaries. With that in mind, your issue of dwindling water supply is a common one across our growing state. New growth can begin to take up capacity by adding one customer at a time, or through the addition of multiple customers at once in a new subdivision. Last week I was at a system which has applications from developers ranging from 75 to 500-lot subdivisions. A neighboring water system has been approached by a developer seeking service for 5,000 lots! As you can see, this is a widespread issue that that requires long range planning and usually requires significant capital expense. If there isn’t sufficient water supply within your service area, you might need to look at purchasing water from a nearby wholesale supplier. I also know of situations where several systems have banded together to secure water rights in a region and built a water treatment plant that is owned and controlled by those systems on a shared basis. Other systems have ventured out of their service area by purchasing or leasing land to develop a well field containing multiple wells, and then built transmission lines back to their service area. This approach, however, might be limited based on any applicable groundwater conservation districts’ permitting, well spacing, and transmission rules, which vary from district to district. Another, newer option being successfully utilized by other systems, is to drill down to the brackish water aquifer and pump that water into a reverse osmosis, or “RO” treatment plant system. This can be more efficient because a water system can usually drill a well near where they want or need the additional capacity, without the system having to spend a huge amount of money to immediately increase its distribution piping. I know of two systems in the Rio Grande Valley that are successfully operating RO treatment plants with daily production figures in the millions of gallons per day range. A side benefit to this type of water treatment plant is that utilities can quickly increase production by installing another well and “treatment skid” any time more capacity is needed. This additional capacity can then be sold to neighboring water systems as a side-income stream. TCEQ has also granted permits for direct and indirect reuse of treated wastewater effluent, which is an additional benefit of getting into the wastewater business. Yes, the human mind balks at the possibility of drinking human wastewater, even though it has been treated, but El Paso and other systems have been recycling wastewater for decades and all tests prove it is safe to drink. Direct reuse is when the wastewater effluent is treated extensively and reinjected back into a ground storage tank and then on into the water distribution system. Indirect reuse is when the wastewater effluent is treated at the wastewater treatment plant and then discharged into the surface water stream upstream from the system’s water treatment plant. From there, the water mixes with the system’s surface water source(s) for normal water treatment. These are just a few ideas for procuring more water supply that have been successful across the state. They may be worth exploring further before your system spends millions of dollars on piping in distant water sources, which would require distribution and pumping stations to get the water to where you need it.

Q: A fiber optics company has approached our WSC about purchasing water through a metered hydrant in support of their boring needs. Can we sell water to them in this way? If so, are there any technical aspects we should be thinking about in facilitating the arrangement?

A: Generally, yes, a WSC is free to sell bulk water to non-members if that revenue, plus any other revenue from non-member rates and fees doesn’t add up to more than 85% of the system’s total annual revenues. Once revenues from non-member sources goes above that threshold, a WSC risks losing its nonprofit status with the Internal Revenue Service and could find itself subject to income taxes for that year. Assuming that isn’t an issue for your system, each WSC board should adopt its own policies and procedures for selling bulk water to non-members. All such sales or system activities should abide by an established policy that doesn’t discriminate based on the individual or type of operation requesting the service, whether it be a farmer, oil field company, or any other type of contractor. As for delivery of bulk water, sales should be through a master meter set up by the WSC at a designated location that can be locked and controlled. Any access to that water meter should require the purchaser to make an appointment with the WSC staff to unlock it and take a meter reading at the beginning and end of the purchase. The buyer should be provided with a bill and should remit payment in accordance with a written contract or agreement between the buyer and the WSC. Some WSCs have set up independent master meters at their plant site or water office for each bulk purchaser. Then once each month the system reads those meters and sends bills based on the total gallons registered on each non-member’s designated meter. Like the centralized meter described above, these meters should also be locked and only accessible by the designated buyer and the WSC’s authorized staff. Any delivery point for bulk water purchases should be protected against backflow and cross-connections through use of an air gap or backflow prevention assembly. This will ensure that the bulk purchaser’s truck doesn’t backflow any contaminants into the WSC’s meter, lines, or tanks. As an additional security measure, some systems utilize keypad access for bulk delivery points. This type of system can also be utilized to automatically initiate a transaction in the utility’s regular billing process. It can also prompt an on-the-spot credit card payment, like the way gas pumps work for filling up your car, which would eliminate the need to send staff to the delivery point each time a purchaser needs water. Finally, all expenses relating to the set-up of an individual master meter should be paid for by the bulk buyer. If your WSC opts to set up an automated bulk water sales station to service multiple purchasers, you would need to determine a prorated cost per account instead of one purchaser paying the full set-up/installation cost. If you have a technical question you would like answered, please email larry.bell@trwa.org.