IS IT TRUE June 12, 2013

1. Hopefully some day the CCO editor Mr. Wallace will feel comfortable telling us exactly what went on in his last months at GAGE with the Freedom Festival losses and other political crap like Weinzapfel stealing the loan funds to let Barnett build houses in the ghetto.

   • With respect to the Freedom Fest I was removed from its operation 4 months before it happened. I was around to see the losses start to be added up and it was ugly. As with the other political meddling it was just politicians being politicians and Evansville being Evansville. It was and is a shame that the venture fund was aborted, the tech transfer agreement has floundered, and the mission was altered. Evansville will never know what could have happened if GAGE was allowed to stay true to its original purposes. Life is much better for me now.

     • Life is always better once you move on from Evansville.

       You can’t change stupid.

       • nor Political Animals that are without a “Moral” Center”.

         • Amen to that!

2. Winnecke +DERP= Weinzapfel light
   =

3. Disagree with the paragraph re: Johnson Controls re: the notion that it is “widely believed that it will pay for itself in savings”. Widely believed by whom–the Union guy who wrote the Community Comment in the Courier this past weekend ?

   All that has been accomplished is to take a bad project, and make it less expensive. It’s STILL BAD, just less costly.

   Why is it STILL BAD ? Oh Romeo, let me count the ways !

   1. A guaranteed savings contract, and yet there is no formula in the contract by which the guaranteed savings will be calculated ! JCI gets to decide how to define savings (using a usage analysis program called H2Optimizer);

   2. The guarantee term is just 5 years, despite JCI’s testimony before IURC that it is a 20 year guarantee;

   3. The residential meters (56,000 of the 60,000 meters being replaced) will be tested just ONE TIME (in Year 5)–despite JCI’s testimony that there will be ANNUAL testing , and JCI reserves the right to keep testing (until they find the right mix of meters to test which releases them from any guarantee); and

   4. The Non-Measured Savings in this contract are 57 %, the Measured Savings 43 %;

   • As we opined in today’s IIT, we agree that the oversight is not sufficient and that all of the 56,000 meters do not merit replacement. Thank you for filling in more details.

     • Has anyone laid hands physically on one of the proposed meters? What make and Model are they? I’m assuming they are Elster SM700.

       I called Elster to find out what kind of batteries they use. Their online data sheet for the GLOBAL meters show that the batteries have an expected life of 15 years and are replaceable; however, when I called the US office of Elster, they told me that the batteries marketed in the US have NONREPLACEALBE BATTERIES!!! You read that right, folks! Call them yourselves if you don’t believe me.

       Elster AMCO Water, LLC
       1100 SW 38th Avenue
       Ocala, FL 34474
       Phone / Fax
       +1 352 369 6500 / +1 (800) 874-0890
       +1 352 368 1950

       This means that after the (projected) 15 year service life of the meters, they will ALL need to be replaced again! They did confirm from their data sheet that the batteries inside the meters are lithium coin batteries like those used on computer motherboards. Anyone who has experience with these batteries already knows the service life is variable. Hot conditions will hasten the death of such a battery.

       What’s extremely interesting here is the man on the phone at Elster told me the reason their US meters don’t allow for battery replacement is because of EPA regulations! I don’t know how true that is, but if it is true, then apparently the EPA would rather see municipalities replace entire meters rather than a simple $2 battery.

       Here is the link to the SM700 GLOBALLY marketed version (not available in the US) which clearly says the batteries are replaceable: http://www.elstermetering.com/downloads/SM700_4pp_090311.pdf

       • There are seemingly very few actual manufacturers of smart water meters out there. It looks to me as if Johnson Controls does not manufacture the meters themselves. Apparently they have a contract to buy them from one of these manufacturers and they just package and market the installation deals to municipalities. In fact, looking at their website, they appear to specialize more in Building Efficiencies, HVAC and batteries. I have not found any online information on any actual Johnson Controls-made water meters.

         One of the few other companies out there building the things also do not feature replaceable batteries in their products, and give an estimated service life of about 15 years before replacement or refurbishment will be necessary.

         http://www.aquiba.com/assets/library/document/a/original/aquiba_datasheet_10593aqm10v1_.pdf

         • Hey, there’s only so much the NSA can do, Brad!

           YOU try snooping on the emails, phone calls, and websurfing habits of 300 million Americans while also turning out “smart meters” to exceptionally gullible cities and towns.

           Lol.

         • Require that all new construction must include in the power distribution box an AC to DC transformer and paired wire to the water meter location.

           Much the same as has been going on for decades for door bell buttons.

           With a permanent power source in place, the industry can then settle on a standard power connection and DC voltage requirement to power any type of telemetry they wish to use for water utility management.

           For existing homes, change out 10% of the meters a year and in ten years you will have all the power sources in place for all the meters. If you want to accomplish it faster offer a financial incentive for homeowners and businesses to have the transformer and wiring installed by a contractor. A reduction in their water bill equal to the cost of installation, spread out over an agreed upon time frame of a year or two should speed up the process.

           ___

         • Installing a DC transformer on every single property, not to mention the wiring to the units… How much additional would that cost? We’ve gotta be talking mega bucks. I doubt that’s a economical solution either.

           These units have to get power somehow, but the meters aren’t always in locations where power can easily be sourced. I doesn’t appear the economical solution is in battery powered digital meters or in transformers to supply DC power.

       • I found out some more interesting info doing research…

         The type of battery used in water meters are Li-SOCl2 (Lithium Thionyl chloride)

         These are not your typical lithium coin type battery. They have a maximum design life of 20 years under optimal conditions are designed to handle a wide temp range: – 55 deg. C to +85 deg. C.

         The material is considered dangerous to work with by Underwriters Laboratories UL, requiring a certified technician to replace, and is expensive, adding about $10 -$15 cost to each water meter, according to a Silicon Laboratories study.
         http://www.silabs.com/Support%20Documents/TechnicalDocs/Low-Power-MCU-Metering.pdf

         They also assert in that study that “a single service call from a technician can
         often exceed the entire cost of the smart meter.” The technician HAS to be certified to even open a meter and fix it. I believe that is an OSHA regulation based on UL findings.

         The company Elster, to whom I spoke on the phone, do not allow for changes of the battery on site in their meters. They would be replaced and supposedly refurbished elsewhere (if at all).

         The smart meter system will work like this… The individual meters will packet data and transmit it periodically to “Repeaters” located on telephone poles. The number of repeaters will depend on the design of the system and the transmission capabilities of the smart meters themselves. (The higher the transmission distance capability, the quicker the batteries will die.) On the flipside, according to the Silicon Labs study, “A single repeater could support approximately 1000 meter nodes. However, the cost of the
         repeater can be anywhere from 10 to 100 times greater than a single meter node.”

         I think there are going to be some significant long term costs to this kind of system. Whether they will outweigh the savings, I don’t know. I have yet to hear of anyone seriously questioning the battery life issue though.

         The fact is, these meters will ALL likely have to be replaced in under 15 years and at MAXIMUM, 20 years.

4. The biggest problem facing St. Louis, as Evansville, is the outdated and noose-like boundries that surround them. There has been virtually no new home construction within the city limits of either city within the last 50 years. Comparing a cities demographics of say 1950 with today, without considering the metro region is purely an apples to orange thing. Cities that have been allowed to expand borders within the last 50 years, have the impression of progress, while landlocked cities like St. Louis appear to be rotting away.

   While there are certainly major problems facing St. Louis, there are plenty of examples of successful rehabitation within the city limits…Central West End, Soulard, The Hill, Forest Park, etc..

   Back to Evansville. The latest consolidation plan was seriously flawed, poorly thought out and frankly, a perfect example of the lack of intelligence within our so called civic leaders. With that mind though, something does need to happen. I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of newcomers who come here, locate in McCutchanville or Newburgh, primarily because that’s where the newer housing stock is located. Without the ability to get some of those newcomers involved in running this city, we will continue to be served by the recycled hacks, Lloyds, McDonalds, Mosbys, etc that are entrenched in what is left of Evansville proper.

   • You are in the right direction but need to also add that the Castle system and the schools on the Northside substantially outperform the rest of the EVSC schools. Scott Elem. is head and shoulders above the other elementarys and has fed the development of new housing in McCutcheonville. Safety is another area where the northside excells.

     • I think it is a chicken/egg thing. The newer housing attracts the mid-upper level families. Those families are what make the performance of the schools better. With better performing schools, more mid and upper level families locate there creating a gap between the prospering areas outside of a city and the restricted, rotting core inside the limits. You can’t take all the “haves” outside of a city boundary and expect it to thrive. Declining values, school performance and crime follow.

   • Shutting down Mesker Amphitheater to further reduce competition for the new arena was a stupid decision. Making it part of the zoo is also a poor decision as the two facilities are quite separate in purpose and the zoo currently requires annual injections of public dollars in order to keep it afloat.

     ___

     • What is going on with Mesker. Last I knew, the seats from Roberts were being taken out there for renovation. Is that still not happening?

       • They will be used as ‘Speed Humps” on the east side from my understanding.

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