About The Global City Teams Challenge

The Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD) leak monitoring project is a water conservation showcase site for The Global City Teams Challenge, a collaborative network of project teams or “action clusters”, working on innovative applications of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city / smart community environment. The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Project partners for the LVVWD water conservation project include AT&T, IBM, Mueller Water Products and the Nevada Center of Excellence. The project team selected water sustainability as its theme as the availability of fresh water resources is a problem effecting millions of people around the world. The project team set out to demonstrate that new technology approaches which are available today can help support a more sustainable plant.

Aging Water Infrastructure

In systems that deliver water to more than 100,000 people, 30% of the pipes are 40-80 years old.

Throughout the United States, water districts and utilities face a number of critical challenges including aging pipeline infrastructure, drought, funding shortages and an aging workforce in sole possession of critical system information. These challenges are forcing water utilities to adopt strategies that will help them evaluate and better manage the future operation of their systems. For most utilities, buried water pipelines represent the largest value asset within their system and typically carry replacement costs in excess of $1,000,000 per mile. A signifi cant amount of these assets were installed in the 1950s and are now reaching the end of their useful service life. Water main breaks are the fi rst visible impacts of aging water infrastructure, wreaking havoc on municipalities as pipes reach the end of their service lives. Small leaks are often referred to as ”ticking time bombs” that go undetected for months, before revealing themselves as puddles, pressure drops, non-revenue water or devastating ruptures that fl ood streets and create property damage.

Situation 

Since 2004, LVVWD has detected more than 1,600 underground leaks,
saving an estimated 290 million gallons of water.

Solution 

LVVWD deployed Mueller Water Products’ EchoShore®-TX permanent leak detection platform. The smart technology enabled LVVWD to better understand and manage the critical water supply pipeline and to reduce any potential water loss due to leakage. The monitoring platform combines proven acoustic leak detection technology with leading-edge AT&T wireless connectivity and visual end-user dashboards to create a cost-effective monitoring solution. In Las Vegas, 13 permanent acoustic sensors are monitoring 3 miles of the aging pipeline installed under Las Vegas Boulevard, from Sunset to Flamingo Roads. “When this technology came along, it allowed us to think outside the box and say, really, the pipes don’t fail catastrophically all of a sudden. They fail by having a very small leak which developed to a larger leak which eventually develops into a sink hole. So by having this technology we’re allowed to monitor the pipe on a continuous basis to detect those small leaks before they get to be big leaks, and then be able to schedule an act and make repairs as needed. This allows us to extend the life of our pipes signifi cantly by doing this.” noted Scott. Once activated, the acoustic sensors collect data about the pipeline section which is being monitored. At assigned times, the information is uploaded to a secure server where advanced algorithms interpret the data, search for leak signals and generate reports. A customized information interface is created for the utility which can be integrated into existing client software programs. In the event of a leak, notifi cation alerts can be sent to a mobile device.

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