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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20130701SPL to Staff 34-44.pdfj"ii- . June 21,2013 .ASE NO. S,L-W-13-01 :$l:.ir"rl _ | fiii l0: 30 lf' :- - THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES{TTII i?;,-,', '-. , ,.- : l PREPARE,D BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 34. In reference to your response to StaffProduction Request (SPR) No. 5, please provide the following: a) Copy of price quotations from vendors concerning reservoir cleaning. Please see the 3 attached quotes conceming reservoir cleaning. b) Copy of the completed O & M Manual for the Spirit Lake Water System. The O & M can be seen on site in the companies' office. June 2lr20l3 CASE NO. SPL.W.13.O1 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 35. In reference to your response to SPR No. 6 you stated that there have been no water system issues or violations identified by IDEQ since the completion of the Sanitary Survey in August 2011. Have you recently conducted any pressure measurements at critical location(s) of your distribution system? If the answer is yes, please provide us any pressure data collected. We do not consider any of the locations in our system critical, however, we do collect a pressure reading in a different point in our distribution system each week. Please see the attached record on electronic copy for 2012to current June 21,2013 CASE NO. SPL-W-13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 36. In reference to your response to SPR No. 7, the complaint list did not show any complaint on low water pressure in 2010, 2011, and20l2 with the exception of a customer complaint logged by the company on512612012. Were there additional complaints brought to the Company about low system pressure dwing the period from January 1,2013 to date? If there are any, please list these complaints and provide explanation on how they were resolved. We were directly presented with one pressure complaints in the Treeport area of the water system which was only noticeable in the customer's home at one location, all outside yard hydrants showed pressure at the normal rate. We were presented indirectly by the IPUC with a few additional pressure complaints. Please see responses provided to Chris Hecht on these matters. June 2lr20l3 CASE NO. SPL-W-13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 37.\n reference to your responses to SPR Nos. 9 and 10, please provide the following: a) An electronic copy of all Excel files in executable format used in calculating customer usage and excess usage for the years 2010,2011 and20l2. ATTACHED on electronic copy. b) In the same tables accompanying your response, please explain the meaning of various notations in Status Column (i.e. GaUneeds Replaced, Needs Replaced-Remo, etc.). The notations were made by our water system operator's as through our meter reading we are compiling a list of meters that are reading in gallons that need to be replaced with a cubic foot meter to allow for continuity throughout the system, for replacement of old remote read style meters that are no longer operable and are almost impossible to read, and for meters that are simply broken and need to be replaced. The meters in SLEWCo, have in great exceeded their use ful1 life and we are ctrrently working on getting estimates for a meter replacement progrzrm throughout the system. June 2lr20l3 CASE NO. SPL-W-13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQTIEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 38. Preliminary review of the data submitted in your response to SPRNos. 9 and l0 show that there appears to be an increasing trend in customer water usage and excess usage (gallons per customer) using annual data points in 2010, 201I and 2012. Please provide similar customer usage and excess usage data for 2009. We do not have this date available for year 2009.. June 2lr20l3 cAsE NO. SPL-W-13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 39. If the Company has completed meter readings in April 1,2013, please provide the customer usage and excess usage data during the winter period from October 2012to March 2013 (6-month period). Please see on the attached electronic document that was included for RequestNo. 37 a. June 2lr20l3 CASE NO. SPL.W.13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 40. In reference to your response to SPR No. I l, please provide an estimate of the volume (or percent) of water "wasted" during annual flushing activities in 2010, 2011 and2012. We have not metered our flushing procedures, we do use a pressure gauge to ensure that we are reaching our 2ft3 per second. For an estimated volume of water during our flushing procedure we flush approximately I million gallons per year for our standard flushing. June 2112013 CASE NO. SPL-W-13.01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PRE,PARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 41. In reference to your response to SPR No. 14, please explain why testing for Nitrite was not included in your water quality testing list. Staffunderstands that DEQ requires Spirit Lake East to test also for this contaminant (one test every nine years) - see Sanitary Survey completed by DEQ in 201l). The test was initially included in the spreadsheet but the cell was hidden in the sheet. A complete copy of the spreadsheet can be found on the attached electronic copy. June 2lr20l3 CASE NO. SPL-W.13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 42.ln reference to your response to SPR No. 18, please provide the following: a) An electronic copy of Excel file (spreadsheet) in performing the calculations. Attached on electronic copy. b) Please confirm if the customer usage data in Column I of the table is the total volume used during the 9-month period for a specific customer. Specified on sheet by loss time frame. 6 months, 9 months, etc. c) If your response to Question No. 9b above is yes, please provide a similar data during the same 9-month period from a prior year for each customer. We are unable to fulfill this request as the majority of customer water usage is estimated due to the fact that the meter reads are so few per year. d) Please confirm if Column 2 of the table is what you consider as the total volume of leak being experienced by the specific customer. Column 2 appears to be the excess usage data. Please explain. Column 2 is the total amount metered for the customer. e) Please state if the leaks occurring on the customers' side of the meter as reported have been hxed to date. All leaks have been repaired to date. June 21,2013 CASE NO. SPL.W.13-01 THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 43. Please provide the annual purchased power cost and the corresponding annual volume of water pumped for approximately the same time frame (i.e. October to September of the following year) for 2012,2011,2010,2009 and 2008. We are unable to provide the information for 2008. Please see attached electronic document which contains the total electrical cost distributed against the water production. June 21,2013 CASE NO. SPL.W.l3.OI THIRD PRODUCTION REQUEST RESPONSES: PREPARED BY LESLIE ABRAMS SPIRIT LAKE EAST WATER CO. 44.\n reference to the Billing Worksheets for Test Year and Future Cost of Monthly Billings, please respond to the following: a) Please explain the discrepancies between the cost of meter reading of $3.00 per meter for the Test Year (Attachment to Application) and the $4.00 per meter cost as specified in the contract between the Company and Water Works, Inc. (Estimate No. 141, Company Response to SPR No. 21). The discrepancy was an error on the part of the memorized cost of the item in QuickBooks. For systems where the meters are easier to access and the distance between meters is closer together the cost is often times $3.00 per meter for reading, however due to the difficulty in reading SLEWCOs' meters there is extra time necessary increasing the expense of the meter reading. b) Please explain why the cost of meter reading decreases from $3.00 per meter for the Test Year to $2.00 per meter reading for the proposed monthly billing. Please attach any supporting calculations. We are estimating that the cost of meter reading will decrease with more frequent meter reading due to the fact that with more frequent meter reading the meters will stay much more accessible and free from excessive overgrowth and winter burial etc. and we will have a more recent past meter read to compire the current read with allowing us to perform less diffrcult field calculations on usage. We are also anticipating changing out all of the broken, difficult to read, and gallon meters out so that we will not be forced to double and triple check meters that are not operating efficiently. c) Please explain what the cost item - Bill Creation Administration entails. d) With the current program we are using, bill creation entails firstly modiffing the current calculation spreadsheet to match the current billing time frame and maximum allowable usage as well as converting all gallon readings to cubic foot readings. Next all meter reads need to be transferred to the spreadsheet capable ofdoing usage calculations and are then gone over in detail to locate any discrepancies and or high usage. Any readings that are suspect are then re-read to ensure accuracy. Once we are confident that all readings are correct we enter the billing program and make any adjustments for meters that have been replaced, are un-working, etc. The next step is to set up the program to accept the current billing guidelines, 3, 6, or 9 months. We then enter into the bill creation screen where we enter in each customer's account number and corresponding current meter read, double checking that the amount the system is charging the customer is the amount we have figured on our spreadsheet. This process is performed for all customers. After the bills are created, we print out a bill transaction file list and check that all calculations are correct. Once this has been completed we move onto updating and printing the billing journal. At this point all the bills are entered and no changes can be made to the bills unless you go in and perform a bill adjustment on individual customers which starts the process over. Printing the billing is done on preprinted postcard forms that we order from a specialty company on a dot matrix printer that is only able to communicate through a 9 pin connection. We set to print the entire batch at once, if for some reason the printing is intemrpted we must go in and re set the billing to either print a smaller block batch for that time period or we must print each bill individually, there is no selection screen where we can pick and choose multiple customers to reprint. Once the billing is printed. We separate all bills on the perforations double checking that all information is accurate, stamp the bills and place in the mail. In reference to the Bill Creation Administration labor, please explain why there is more time (6 hours) spent per billing for the Test Year (quarterly billing) compared to lesser time (4 hours) spent per billing for the proposed monthly billing. Please attach any supporting calculations. The monthly billing will incur less administration hours due to the fact that we will be abandoning the old billing software that was developed to run on Windows 95 and will be moving to a QuickBooks based progftlm where there has been an import export functional spreadsheet created along with the memorized transactions that will allow us to automate the data entry procedure and give us the ability to adjust any customer billing discrepancies through the simple and streamlined process that the QuickBooks progftlm allows. We have the ability to manipulate QuickBooks to perform a variety of functions that we are unable to perform with the old program. We will also have access to much more e) user friendly reports and statements with the ability to print on fulI 8 xll sheets for periods where customer notices are required. This is an estimation of time based on experience form those performing the billing. In reference to the cost item - Forms, please explain why the cost per Form per customer is considerably higher for the Test Year ($0.St per form) compared to $0.09 per form for the proposed monthly billing. Please attach any supporting calculations. The cost per form is significantly lower for the proposed monthly billing than it has been for the current billing, as it will no longer be necessary to purchase pre-printed dot matrix specialty forms. Standard blank 4 to a page postcards can be purchased at a much lower cost from a variety of vendors.