State reviewer flags Eureka water reporting errors; requires monthly source-meter photos until SCADA confirmed

A state Division of Drinking Water representative told Eureka City Council members and staff that errors in the city’s 2024 water reporting must be corrected and that the division will monitor the system with additional oversight.

The official said the division will impose IPS (inspection/point) penalties against the water system if required reports are not completed by March 31 and that points will be removed once corrected reports are submitted and the reviewer is confident data are reliable. As an interim step, the reviewer said the state will require Eureka to send photos of the source meters at each well once a month, at the start of each month, for a year; the photos will be texted to the reviewer and recorded in a spreadsheet for verification.

The complaint about the 2024 submittal began when the reviewer compared meter totals entered in the online report with the city’s billing-and-usage summary. The reviewer said the numbers do not reconcile: the billing data show about 27–29 million gallons sold to customers while the submitted well production numbers in the online report were far lower in some entries. The reviewer asked staff to provide the 2024 report corrected “in a week and a half” and offered to go through meter records in person with the city’s water operator to reconcile differences.

Councilmembers and staff discussed the city's SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) setup. The reviewer said the SCADA system has not been reliably feeding the monthly production numbers into the report and that some meters that should radio-read to a central receiver do not appear in the monthly downloads. The reviewer recommended staff confirm whether radio antennas, batteries, or unit age are causing gaps, and to read and submit numbers manually where the radio read fails. The reviewer asked for the metered values (meter serial or visible meter reading) for each new meter already installed, noting she has requested those numbers but has not received them.

Unmetered connections—parks, fields, some institutional or livestock lines—were discussed as a significant source of “estimated” water use. The reviewer said the report’s water-loss estimate (page 8 of the report packet) will reflect unmetered uses, and she requested a list of all unmetered connections so the city can prioritize metering to reduce estimated loss.

Councilmembers acknowledged limited staff capacity and several recent operator transitions. The mayor and council members said they would meet with the water operator and the reviewer to create a short-term plan to reconcile the 2024 data and to improve meter reading procedures. The reviewer said she will reassess after one year of monthly photos to determine whether the SCADA data stream is reliable enough to lift the extra photo requirement.

The reviewer characterized the effort as cooperative and said she will share definitions and categories used across the state so Eureka's billing classifications (residential, commercial, institutional, livestock/industrial) match state reporting requirements. She repeatedly emphasized that her goal was accurate data rather than punishment, but warned IPS points would be applied if corrective action was not completed by deadlines.

Councilmembers asked that the reviewer provide a written checklist of recommended corrections; the reviewer agreed to supply access to the submitted online report so staff can view the entries flagged for correction and to meet with staff to reconcile monthly meter readings where only quarterly field reads exist.

Ending: Council members and staff scheduled follow-up work with the water operator and the state reviewer to reconcile the 2024 report, begin the monthly photo verification process, and identify unmetered connections to prioritize metering.