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Eldridge Utility Board approves bills and hears updates on meter pilot, outages and water-pump work
Summary
The Eldridge Utility Board approved the agenda, minutes and bills payable at its July 21 meeting and received staff updates on a planned meter pilot targeting mid‑August, two July 20 electric outages that affected six customers, a call-center routing fix, and ongoing water-pump and SCADA troubleshooting.
The Eldridge Utility Board on July 21 approved the agenda, minutes and bills payable and heard staff updates on a meter‑pilot rollout, two electric outages and water‑system maintenance.
A staff member told the board that a vendor, Van Wert, has meters "ready to go," and that the utility is configuring head‑end software, assigning a project manager and setting up a cellular data backhaul. The staff member said the vendor and staff are “looking for potential deployment by middle of August” but added the date was not firm and staff will provide a follow‑up once it is confirmed.
The board also received an electric department report on two outages that occurred on July 20. According to staff, a noon outage near 305 North Third Street was attributed to lightning during morning storms; a later outage at about 1:11 a.m. at 305 West Spring Street was caused by animal contact at a transformer and service was restored about 1:25 a.m. In total, six customers were affected.
Board members and staff discussed a recent call‑center routing problem. Staff said calls are now being routed to Tri City and that the immediate routing issue has been fixed. The board asked staff to add a direct phone number to the recorded message on the utility’s website so callers will have an alternate number if the automated menu glitches.
On water operations, staff reported that June water testing was discussed at the prior meeting; July samples have been submitted and results were not yet available. Staff said July compliance disinfectant‑byproduct testing had been completed and they are awaiting results.
Staff provided details on recent pump and motor work. A contractor swapped a 40‑horsepower motor for a 50‑horsepower motor and performed Siemens/SoftStart integration. Staff noted an issue in the SCADA/VLC system causing an automatic shutdown of a well; they said high‑service pump 1 was delivering about 418 gallons per minute versus an expected 540 gpm, and that impeller adjustments produced roughly a 30 gpm improvement. Staff said they are exploring upsizing high‑service pumps to improve efficiency and will schedule further maintenance and evaluation.
Votes at a glance: the board approved the agenda (motion seconded by a board member identified in the transcript as Hamilton), approved the meeting minutes (second by Hamilton), approved the bills payable (mover not specified in the transcript; seconding phrasing unclear), and approved a motion to adjourn (moved by Hamilton; seconded by Gooding). The transcript records vocal 'aye' votes for each motion but does not list roll‑call vote tallies.
The meeting record notes that Peterson and Bristler were absent. The board closed without further business.
