An acoustic pipe monitoring leak detection technology that uses fire hydrants to host multi-sensor devices, has already found more than a dozen leaks for Missoula Water, says Lou Rossetti senior vice president of sales North America at water technology firm Orbis Intelligent Systems.
Non-revenue water loss in Missoula, Montana, is being driven down by a successful collaboration between the municipality and California-based technology company Orbis. The partnership began in February 2024, with a pilot trial involving installation of Orbis SmartCap telemetry leak detection devices on fire hydrants, and more than a dozen leaks have already been found.
The water distribution network in Missoula comprises 340 miles of pipes and distributes up to 45 million gallons of water a day, serving over 27,000 houses. Much of the pipework is legacy infrastructure, installed within commercial and residential areas.
Topographically, the city is built on an old lakebed, meaning that water leaking from mains drains very easily through the rock bed, and into both the deep and shallow areas of the Missoula Valley Aquifer, which provides drinking water to the city. Historically, the aquifer was replenished quickly by the water- cycle, and finding leaks was not considered a priority.
Today, Missoula presents specific challenges for water managers. It is a growing city, and the population is increasing annually, leading to new housing developments expanding the city boundary.
In common with many US cities, Missoula has aging water infrastructure – some dating back to the 1920s, and has also experienced a lack of historical maintenance, teamed with a lack of specialist equipment to track and fix leaks, which has led to roughly 50% non-revenue water-loss.
Aaron Metcalf, leak investigation specialist at Missoula Water, said, “It became apparent that with population increases, aging infrastructure, a loss of pressure [in the network] leading to increased energy bills for pumping, and an ever-changing climate, that leaks had to be addressed now, to enable the Missoula Water system to be resilient and sustainable for the future.”
In Missoula, water loss ranges from small leaks in the service lines taking water to properties, to large breaks on the distribution mains traversing the city, which can lead to bursts emerging in roads and sidewalks, causing major disruption to communities. Or even the discovery of leaks that had been unnoticed for years.
Engineers and technicians at Missoula Water were looking to integrate a smart and effective leak detection system that was robust, adaptable, and took advantage of existing urban and residential infrastructure to reduce water loss and make the shift from reactive decision-making to data-led proactive operations.
Pilot competition
Knowing that Missoula Water needed to start a proactive campaign to reduce non-revenue leakage in the water network, a pilot competition was launched to find the best solution on the market for the city’s needs.
Over three months from June – the end of August 2024, four companies with leak detection technologies set up in specific areas of the city that had not previously been the focus for leaks, but that were accessible, to rigorously test and trial solutions in head-to-head process against a stringent list of requirements set out by Missoula Water managers.
These included functionality, installation, speed and accuracy of leak detection, software, customer service, and overall price, as well as sub-categories within these requirements that the technologies could be scored against.
Orbis, working in collaboration with Core & Main as distribution partners since 2024 to enhance water network performance and efficiency nationwide through the SmartCap technology, deployed SmartCaps in a mix of downtown and residential areas during the pilot – representing two contrasting areas to accurately replicate locations for future need.
The Orbis SmartCap is an intelligent fire hydrant and pipe monitoring device that enables remote leak detection by providing intelligent network data from a multi-sensor. Packaged into a fire hydrant, the device can convert any fire hydrant, be that wet or dry barrel hydrants or legacy hydrants, into a smart-enabled asset simply by replacing the pumper nozzle cap.
While all technologies tested concurrently during the trial found leaks, it became clear that the hydrant-based logging systems would be better suited to meet the demands of Missoula’s variable weather conditions, with winter temperatures often plummeting to as low as –10 degrees Fahrenheit (-20
degrees Celius), or the needs of technicians to easily relocate and deploy leak detection equipment at short notice while avoiding unsafe roadways and intersections.
“With temperatures being so low in the in winter, it can be hard to get out-and-about,” said Metcalf. “One of the reasons we wanted to use leak detection technology was to supplement our winter work program and day-to-day operations to find leaks during harsh weather, but also to teach us what the cause-and-effect correlation is for leaks now and in the future.”
The SmartCap’s pinpoint accuracy enabled Missoula Water’s contracted repair teams to quickly locate underground leaks and give managers confidence and that teams were being deployed for real leaks rather than for false positives or speculative leaks.
Metcalf also commented that since 30 SmartCaps have been installed, managers “have not been wrong once” in deploying repair teams to specific locations. After a leak area has been fully surveyed and all existing leaks, including smaller and emerging leaks, have been found, it is possible to relocate the caps if needed.
Alongside the installed SmartCaps, Missoula Water technicians were also trained on the Orbis cloud-based Streamline portal, where they regularly check and identify warnings for potential leaks coming from the devices. All these advantages led to the Orbis SmartCap being selected by Missoula Water after the pilot.
Metcalf said, “Since the SmartCaps have been installed in both urban and residential areas, we have seen a huge difference in accuracy and found more than a dozen leaks in a process that takes us weeks instead of months. The ease of deployment and the plug-and-play strength of the SmartCaps has been a huge positive for us as we can strategically plan when and where to place them – covering more ground than was ever possible before.
“During the pilot trial, my team and I never felt alone as Orbis had a field support team visiting onsite, as well as virtual technical support whenever there were questions. Its level of customer service was second to none, which continues today, and was one of the fundamental reasons why we chose Orbis.”
Telemetry data
Once installed, the SmartCap emits a secure wireless signal to the cloud with algorithms enabling the SmartCap sensors to interact and connect with each other. SmartCaps use GPS to show accurate leak locations, with timestamps capturing acoustic data.
Data uploads from the connected SmartCaps allow analysis of sound correlations for accurate pinpointing of leaks. The Streamline portal and dashboard provides actionable alert notifications and identifies locations for corrective action to enable near real-time, auto generated, reporting for network efficiency.
Alert notifications on parameters including leakage, tamper, and flow can be viewed on the online portal or through an application programming interface (API) on a utility’s in-house database. The portal gives a distance, in feet, from the hydrant, making pinpointing exact locations easier.
This actionable intelligence enables utilities and municipalities to manage water network operations efficiently and effectively.
Cost savings
Drinking water systems in the US currently lose at least six billion gallons of water every day and a water main break occurs every two minutes, according to figures from the American Society of Civil Engineering – which says the country lost an estimated US$7.6 billion of treated water in 2021 due to leaks.
Implementing Orbis SmartCaps has achieved significant water and cost-savings by alerting Missoula Water to leaks which would otherwise have continued for weeks, even months.
The SmartCap’s remote monitoring capability means no labor resource is required onsite to detect leaks. However, the biggest savings come from the prevention of future water losses and by lowering the risk of major infrastructure damage and the costly legal claims that can result from a water main break.
Metcalf said, “The team members who are trained on the Streamline portal can look for the alerts presented on the network map and can even hone-in and listen to individual SmartCaps to determine risk and whether to escalate it into action.
“The Streamline portal can easily pick up the difference between high water usage, versus line-breaks, in a way that was not possible before. All this information and data can be interpreted, analyzed, and conveyed to maintenance crews.”
Since securing the contract, Orbis has continued to support Missoula Water with technical support where queries arise, with follow-up meetings and on-hand emergency contacts made readily available.
On-going training on the Streamline portal has also been made available to the Missoula Water team, to ensure the software’s use is maximized and expanded as the software is continually developed. As Metcalf says, “Teaching us the barebones of the technology so we can learn our own systems.”
From 2025, Missoula Water hopes to expand its knowledge on the use of the SmartCaps, with the ambition to continue to greatly lower the water lost to leaks in the Missoula area. With no current ceiling on the number that will be needed, this is the beginning of a collaborative process with Orbis which is expected to continue for many years to come.
