Where the readings, the networks and the rate case meet

Every system Halverick buys arrives with its own control equipment, and often with a remote connection nobody has reviewed. I begin with an inventory of controllers, software versions, network paths and the habits operators have built around them. Internet-facing access is closed at once; everything else waits until we understand it. I then decide whether a site joins our central system through a segmented network, stays on local control for a period or needs replacement first. Operations sets staffing and treatment practice, and I make sure the technology timetable does not quietly decide those for them. Since 2019 we have brought nineteen acquired systems into the central environment. The other four remain on local control, each with a dated plan and a named owner, and I report their status to the audit and risk committee every quarter.

A reading on a screen is only as good as the instrument, its installation and its configuration. I ask what decision each data stream will support before deciding how much verification it needs. A chlorine analyser feeding an operator alarm, a district flow meter feeding a leakage report and a customer meter feeding a bill carry different consequences when wrong. My teams keep a calibration register for 4,300 field instruments and test new installations against portable reference meters before their data reaches any dashboard. I report water losses by volume per connection per day, following the industry's standard audit method, because a percentage moves with consumption and can flatter a dry summer. When a vendor's model and a field test disagree, the field test wins until someone explains the difference.

Our rates are set by two state commissions, and a regulated utility usually earns a return on capital investment but only recovers operating expense. That difference can push technology choices towards owning systems the company would be better off renting. I present every significant proposal with both treatments side by side: the ten-year cost, the effect on rate base and earnings, and the operating risk each option leaves with us. Regulatory affairs and finance own the filing strategy; my job is to make sure the technical comparison is honest before the accounting preference is applied. I have recommended capital ownership where a control system must run without outside connections, and subscriptions where patching, mobile access and vendor upgrades matter more. Directors should see when the incentive and the recommendation point different ways.

Plant control systems last fifteen to twenty-five years, which gives a single vendor or integrator considerable power if the utility cannot read its own programs. I require open communication protocols where equipment supports them, complete source logic and network drawings delivered to us, and at least two qualified integrators able to work on each platform in our service area. We maintain a standard library of controller logic for pumping stations, tanks and filters, so a new project starts from our design rather than a contractor's. This costs more at purchase and slows some projects. In 2024 we declined an enterprise licence that would have cut software fees by about a third in exchange for standardising every site on one proprietary platform. I would rather pay that difference than lose the ability to change supplier.

Much of what a water utility owns cannot be inspected without digging, so its records carry unusual weight. Acquired systems often arrive with paper maps, tap cards or a former superintendent's memory. My asset-records team brings those into our geographic information system and marks each entry with its source and confidence. That work was tested by the service-line inventory federal lead rules required by October 2024: we classified about 129,000 service lines, and 38 per cent of them initially had an unknown material. Field verification, historical permits and excavation records have since reduced that share to 14 per cent. I am careful about what the record claims. An entry inferred from installation age is labelled as inferred, because replacement crews and regulators will rely on it.