Carmel Utilities asks residents to join Purdue irrigation survey and to sign up for new customer portal
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Summary
Carmel Utilities described a Purdue University irrigation and drought-resistant landscaping study, asked residents to take a short survey, and urged signing up for a new customer portal that provides hourly water usage, leak alerts and outage messaging; staff addressed recent short outages and website access issues.
Lane Young, director of Carmel Utilities, briefed attendees on two customer-facing initiatives: a Purdue University study on irrigation and drought-resistant landscaping and the launch of a new utilities customer portal. Young said Purdue researchers asked the city to help by distributing a brief survey to residents to gather data on irrigation practices; a QR code and sign-up list were provided at the meeting.
Young also explained the customer portal (mycarmelutilities.com) as a tool that gives customers hourly usage data for irrigation and household meters, alerts for unusual usage (leaks), and individualized outage notifications via email or SMS once users sign up. He said customers who previously paid bills online must sign in once more to use the new portal.
Residents reported intermittent, short water outages caused by valve or hydrant testing soon after a larger outage. One resident described an unannounced 15- to 20-minute outage while someone was showering. Young said crews normally use door hangers and other notices when outages are planned, but valve locations and occasional field-testing anomalies can create unplanned short interruptions; staff committed to follow up with operations and improve notification where possible.
Several attendees reported difficulty locating the portal registration on the city website; staff agreed to review the website banner/link placement and promised to pass on the usability feedback to web staff. For non-water utility work (for example, fiber installation), Young advised residents to contact City Engineering (jkirsch@carmel.in.gov) for coordination and permitting questions.
Young gave practical details about the Purdue survey, the portal, and how the portal will allow the utilities department to send individualized messages during outages and to detect irregular water usage that could indicate leaks or rental-property misuse. Residents were encouraged to sign up to receive notifications and to share the survey with neighbors.
