5.5. ERMUSR 09-09-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Elk River Municipal Utilities UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Troy Adams, P.E. —General Manager John Dietz, Chair Al Nadeau, Vice Chair Daryl Thompson, Trustee MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: September 9, 2014 5.5 SUBJECT: Access to Private Property BACKGROUND: At the August 12th Commission meeting during a request from a customer for a special arrangement for repayment of past due charges,the customer voiced his concern for ERMU personnel having entered his private property for access to ERMU equipment. Commissioner Daryl Thompson stated that he shared the customer's concern for ERMU personnel entering onto private property and requested the topic be added to the next Commission meeting agenda. DISCUSSION: It has only been a few years since ERMU has converted to an automatic meter reading(AMR) system. Until that point ERMU employed and contracted meter reading personnel to physically read the thousands of meters in our system. This required the meter reader to walk up to each meter and manually record the usage on the electric meter and the externally located water meter remote register. The meters are typically located on or in the building, which required the meter readers to access private property thousands of times every month. It had not been the practice to provide advanced notice to thousands of customers every month prior to reading the meters. The permission for this access was established through past City Council's adoption of ordinances authorizing the Utilities Commission to adopt rules for the safe and reliable operation of the utilities system and then through the subsequent Utilities Commission adoption of those rules. The current operational practices of ERMU personnel conform to the Commission adopted rules. Also, to connect to ERMU's water or electric system, customers need to follow standards for meter locations and allow access for meter reading and maintenance. For example, residential electric meters are required to be located near the front corner of the house on the side nearest to the electric transformer or pedestal. The intention for this requirement is to reduce cost and simplify access. With the recent conversion to AMR and the implementation of a mobile reading system, ERMU personnel can now read nearly all of our system's meters by driving down the street. Our adoption of this newer technology and implementation of the mobile reader is more advanced than most utilities in Minnesota. For example, our neighboring utility Connexus Energy, with rOlIEREO Rr Page 1 of 3 ATURE Reliable Public Power Provider P O W E R E D To S R e 51