Service that holds water

Service that holds water

CCEC partners with member Barnes Rural Water District to enhance outage communication

As manager of the Barnes Rural Water District, Perry Kaupan takes on many roles. When booster stations are needed to maintain water pressure for five counties of homes and farms, he’s an engineer. When water needs to be treated to remove iron and other unnecessary particles, he’s a chemist. When friction loss in a specific water pipe needs to be calculated, he’s a physicist.

Above all, he’s a heart surgeon, making sure vital liquid is flowing where it needs to flow. And when it’s not – it’s his job to find the problem artery, and fast.

“We had about nine people without water on this run of three miles, which is quite a few,” Kaupan said of an unexpected spring outage near Fort Ransom, N.D. One customer had just returned home from a hospital stay to find no water from the faucet.

Kaupan and his crew were able to find the pipe leak and return water service to the affected families in fewer than 36 hours. But the experience taught him that “outage educator” would need to be the next talent in his repertoire. He called his friends at Cass County Electric Cooperative (CCEC).

“We want people to know that Barnes Rural Water does not take these things lightly,” Kaupan said. “I wanted to know what Cass County Electric – being like a big brother to us – what they do to be proactive with members. So if it happens again, we at Barnes Rural Water can say we take it very seriously and direct customers to our webpage for a list of things they can do to prepare and respond.”

Kaupan spoke to CCEC’s Member Services and Communications teams to learn which outage communication methods used for their 55,000 electric members would translate to his 2,100 water members. That discussion spurred an effort to provide instant text and email notifications of potential/ongoing water outages and to begin planning for a web-based public outage map.

Barnes Rural Water recently made numerous investments in upgrades for outage reductions, but outages still happen, no matter what the utility. Educating consumers on having an emergency response plan is just another facet of the investment.

“The key is communication,” said CCEC Business Accounts Manager Chad Brousseau. “Getting people in the mindset of being prepared for an outage, whether it’s on the power or water side. Plan ahead and keep bottled water on hand in case of a water outage. On the power side, have flashlights, a battery radio or a charged cellphone for communications, possibly even a backup generator.”

Mutual goals, mutual tools
Barnes Rural Water and CCEC have a history of cooperation. They both serve an expanse of overlapping territory in southeastern North Dakota and actually shared a crew building for a short time in Valley City. But they still share a common mission of harnessing complex technology and techniques to deliver simple essentials to rural areas – water and electricity.

Even Kaupan’s system for minimizing water outages is mutually beneficial for both organizations. If the power goes out, Barnes Rural Water’s 10 reservoirs are backed up by emergency fuel generators to keep water running. Those generators are also connected to CCEC’s demand response (off-peak) program. When electric demand rises past generation capacity and power market prices are high, Minnkota Power Cooperative (CCEC’s wholesale power provider) will call on participating diesel and gas generators to reduce electric load to a more manageable level.

“The benefit for us is that we avoid purchasing power on the wholesale market that can be volatile,” Brousseau explained. “The benefit to Barnes Rural Water is they get rate savings for doing that – members on the generator program can save up to 25% annually.”

“And that’s huge,” Kaupan added.

Maintaining 1,500 miles of infrastructure carrying an average of 500,000 gallons of water a day takes a lot of capital. But communicating that process also has a cost, in personnel, software and technology. It’s another area where CCEC can offer savings.

“We can help share this message through our communication channels, because it’s mutually beneficial,” Brousseau said. “People don’t always think about what goes on behind the scenes to make sure the water comes on when you turn on the tap or for the lights to come on when you flip the switch because these services are very reliable. However, outages do occur occasionally and our goal is to encourage people to be prepared with a plan.”