Building on Irrigation Flow Meter Fundamentals

Ken Quandt Author

02/01/2018 Added

39 Plays

Description

Spring 2018 Water Seminar Series, 'Williams Lecture'

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[00:00:00.000](applause)
[00:00:02.456]Can everybody hear me alright?
[00:00:04.965]Good.
[00:00:06.823]It's really an honor to be invited back here
[00:00:09.711]to my alma mater, to speak on not only what I studied here,
[00:00:14.397]what I've been doing in my career for the last 20+ years.
[00:00:20.522]And Dean being introduced by
[00:00:23.753]one of my favorite professors while I was here,
[00:00:26.578]makes it even more special.
[00:00:28.204]So, thank you.
[00:00:32.088]Before I get started, I've got a confession to make.
[00:00:35.068]If I'd been asked to do this probably 15 years ago,
[00:00:38.925]I'm not sure what my topic would have been,
[00:00:40.648]but it would have been much different.
[00:00:42.521]Because back then I wasn't as much of a flow meter advocate,
[00:00:49.425]and I have to tell you, the experiences that I had
[00:00:53.212]in my previous job, at the Natural Resource District
[00:00:56.123]as a Water Resource Manager, that shaped a lot
[00:00:58.485]of the opinions and backup the facts
[00:01:01.370]that I'm gonna go over today.
[00:01:06.497]The few things I'm going to cover today:
[00:01:08.951]I wanna talk a little bit in the beginning,
[00:01:10.768]about using the flow meter as a management tool;
[00:01:15.549]and then we'll go into talking about a new product,
[00:01:19.453]a newer product from McCrometer called FlowConnect,
[00:01:22.921]which generates remote flow data,
[00:01:26.312]for irrigation and water resources management.
[00:01:30.190]And finally, I'll end up with talking about a few projects
[00:01:35.224]that I've worked with, some water districts
[00:01:36.966]here in Nebraska.
[00:01:40.793]Which start off, and ask you to indulge me a little bit
[00:01:43.858]on a story, I have to tell you about.
[00:01:47.422]About six years ago I had the opportunity
[00:01:49.566]to travel down to New Orleans, for a groundwater conference.
[00:01:52.398]A lot of you are probably familiar with GMDA,
[00:01:54.608]Groundwater Management Districts Association.
[00:01:58.367]The first day of the conference, was a tour
[00:02:02.127]around New Orleans, of several flood control structures
[00:02:04.819]that were being built by the Core of Engineers,
[00:02:07.521]in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
[00:02:09.731]And this was one of our stops, and this was basically
[00:02:15.152]a damn that was being built at the bottom,
[00:02:18.201]or the mouth of the levee, between it and a lake.
[00:02:22.184]And I can't remember which lake it was, forgive me.
[00:02:25.733]But basically this was to prevent storm surge
[00:02:29.261]from being pushed out of the lake back up the levee,
[00:02:32.237]and flooding the town.
[00:02:34.279]So it was a pretty important structure.
[00:02:36.191]Now when I'm standing up on the observation deck,
[00:02:38.011]I look down and I see water spilling out of this pipe.
[00:02:42.996]And to just tell you what a water geek I am,
[00:02:45.805]I'm looking at that thinking, what is that
[00:02:47.705]about five or six hundred gallons a minute?
[00:02:50.709]Then I looked a little closer, and I realized,
[00:02:53.457]hey, that's a blue tube.
[00:02:54.858]There's a McCrometer Meter down there,
[00:02:56.951]and I gotta run down there and take a picture.
[00:03:00.360]I went down the observation deck, and I started setting off
[00:03:02.854]across the construction site.
[00:03:04.987]And the foreman runs up to me,
[00:03:06.491]and he's waving his hands saying, "Hey you can't be here.
[00:03:08.827]"This is a hard hat area, you need steel-toed boots".
[00:03:13.028]And I turn to him and I said, "Hey, it's alright,
[00:03:15.291]"I work for the company that makes these meters.
[00:03:17.202]"I just wanna take a picture".
[00:03:21.048]His demeanor just changed 180 degrees instantly,
[00:03:24.685]and he said, "Oh, I love these meters.
[00:03:26.924]"I read 'em twice a day".
[00:03:28.495]He said, "I can't do my work without these meters".
[00:03:32.439]And he went on to explain to me
[00:03:35.456]that, you know, they're basically working in a...
[00:03:38.260]Their excavation is submerged,
[00:03:41.537]because that water's constantly seeping in,
[00:03:44.590]and they're constantly de-watering the excavation,
[00:03:48.005]just so they can do their work.
[00:03:50.827]And then he said those five words, that I'll never forget.
[00:03:54.546]He said, "You gotta know the flow".
[00:03:57.790]And you know, basically, he went on to explain that
[00:04:00.642]if the pump isn't moving enough water,
[00:04:03.028]then the excavation fills in with water,
[00:04:05.505]they can't do their work.
[00:04:06.858]So he's using the pump, or using the meter as an indication,
[00:04:10.870]to let him know if something's wrong with his pump.
[00:04:12.912]Because If they're not moving enough water,
[00:04:15.279]then they can't do their work.
[00:04:17.605]So you gotta know the flow.
[00:04:19.507]That's five words, right?
[00:04:21.159]There's probably not to many English majors here
[00:04:22.852]to correct me.
[00:04:23.891]That's when I realized, that it's the same,
[00:04:26.744]whether it's a construction site down in New Orleans,
[00:04:29.814]or a cornfield here in Nebraska, or an almond orchard
[00:04:33.790]out in California, the same is true.
[00:04:36.311]You gotta know the flow.
[00:04:40.878]Now I wanna throw out, I little bit,
[00:04:42.928]maybe a radical idea here.
[00:04:44.986]That basically flow meters should be used for
[00:04:48.947]irrigation water management, before we get to regulation.
[00:04:54.302]And I'll tell you guys what I tell every NRD Water Manager,
[00:04:58.725]every Groundwater District Manager,
[00:05:00.208]every State DWR employee.
[00:05:03.378]We don't make regulatory devices at McCrometer.
[00:05:07.592]We make water measurement and water management devices.
[00:05:11.475]And if there's one idea, that I want you to leave with today
[00:05:15.395]is the fact that water conservation starts with the meter.
[00:05:21.166]And I got a few ideas, a few thoughts of my own,
[00:05:24.851]that I put together here, to back that up,
[00:05:29.250]situations where you can use the flow meter
[00:05:31.394]as a management tool.
[00:05:33.886]First of all, evaluating irrigation efficiency.
[00:05:37.443]QT = AD, one of the most useful equations I learned
[00:05:41.626]from Dean's Irrigation Systems Management class.
[00:05:45.111]Basically, the flow rate of the water source,
[00:05:47.801]times the time, equals the depth of water that covers
[00:05:51.662]a given area.
[00:05:55.493]A very useful equation, very simple equation.
[00:05:58.095]If you know any three, you can solve for the fourth.
[00:06:02.099]And a lot of times, area's fixed,
[00:06:04.962]depth is possibly something that is desired,
[00:06:08.744]you can put in the application time of something,
[00:06:11.345]that you can measure, or again, you can put in a desired,
[00:06:16.683]desired time.
[00:06:18.579]But flow, a lot of times is elusive.
[00:06:22.288]A lot of times it's estimated, or an assumption.
[00:06:26.188]So again, I'd say if you're gonna go to the trouble
[00:06:29.372]of making,
[00:06:30.760]making this calculation, again, you gotta know the flow.
[00:06:35.223]Improving irrigation system evaluations.
[00:06:38.659]Set times, mostly with, in this case, it's mostly with
[00:06:42.072]flood irrigation.
[00:06:43.602]If you want to improve your irrigation efficiency,
[00:06:46.399]a lot of times you improve that advance time, or
[00:06:49.533]speed up that advance time, to get that
[00:06:52.045]water across the field.
[00:06:55.735]By reducing the time, you reduce the overall application,
[00:06:58.490]you can improve irrigation efficiency.
[00:07:00.982]It goes right along with that previous,
[00:07:03.896]previous equation.
[00:07:05.674]Nozzle packages, drip systems,
[00:07:08.059]any of these types of matters need, or their designed
[00:07:11.950]for a specific flow rate.
[00:07:13.942]So again, if you don't have the flow rate,
[00:07:16.295]these aren't gonna function as properly,
[00:07:19.070]your uniformity across the field is going to suffer.
[00:07:23.016]Again, you gotta know the flow.
[00:07:25.559]Pump Plant Performance.
[00:07:27.589]Just like that guy down in New Orleans, he's using the meter
[00:07:30.814]to check his pump, to make sure that the pump
[00:07:32.991]is functioning correctly.
[00:07:35.328]If you don't have a meter, you don't know if your pump
[00:07:37.547]is operating correctly.
[00:07:41.380]The irrigation well itself.
[00:07:43.228]Maybe you got an old steel,
[00:07:47.208]an old steel well casing, that could be corroded,
[00:07:50.019]possibly ready to cave in.
[00:07:51.652]If it's plugged up, and the well isn't yielding the water
[00:07:55.982]that it should, again, you may not know
[00:07:58.409]unless you have a flow meter there.
[00:08:01.639]So again, you gotta know the flow.
[00:08:04.905]Water Use reporting, Power Coeifficients.
[00:08:07.728]This reminds me of back when I was at the NRD,
[00:08:09.938]I think it was about 2004.
[00:08:14.425]We were just getting ready to implement
[00:08:16.618]our mandatory meter regulations.
[00:08:19.487]At the time, at a
[00:08:22.339]public meeting, had a farmer say,
[00:08:24.598]"I've already got a meter on my well.
[00:08:26.004]"It's an electric meter, and it runs
[00:08:27.546]"every time the pivot runs".
[00:08:31.725]And that's a valid way of getting a good estimate
[00:08:34.793]of how much water your applying, but it requires
[00:08:37.285]a good pump plant efficiency test on that pump,
[00:08:41.136]to derive a power coefficient.
[00:08:43.205]Basically, you use a power coefficient
[00:08:46.540]to convert kilowatt hours into hours of running time.
[00:08:50.265]But if you don't have a good flow rate,
[00:08:52.642]what do you take that running time?
[00:08:54.689]You take that running time times something.
[00:08:56.709]You need a good flow rate.
[00:08:58.645]And if you don't have,
[00:09:00.694]if you don't have a good efficiency test,
[00:09:03.741]a good coefficient, you're just gonna overestimate.
[00:09:06.393]And why would you wanna overestimate your water application?
[00:09:10.154]And finally, economics.
[00:09:11.872]Basically, every time the farmer pushes that button
[00:09:14.921]to turn the system on, it's costing him money.
[00:09:17.919]And why wouldn't you want a good idea, of how much money
[00:09:21.576]that acreage of water costs you to go on the field?
[00:09:25.099]So again, you gotta know the flow.
[00:09:30.029]So I'd like to go into
[00:09:32.916]an introduction on FlowConnect,
[00:09:35.393]which is a newer product from McCrometer.
[00:09:40.826]I did bring some literature, and a demo in back,
[00:09:44.397]afterwards, in case you're interested.
[00:09:46.690]But I wanna go through
[00:09:49.629]a brief product overview,
[00:09:52.701]talk about some of the water management objectives
[00:09:55.685]that any water manager may go through,
[00:09:59.537]the considerations that they may have.
[00:10:03.179]And some of the uses that they need
[00:10:07.367]good irrigation water,
[00:10:09.604]irrigation water flow data, for their job.
[00:10:12.923]And we'll talk a little bit about FlowConnect as a solution,
[00:10:16.248]and then some of the features and benefits
[00:10:18.907]of the product.
[00:10:20.921]Basically, what McCrometer has done with FlowConnect
[00:10:23.684]is integrate all of the equipment that you need
[00:10:27.324]into the head of the meter.
[00:10:29.172]So everything, with what you see right here,
[00:10:32.535]in this enclosure at the head of the meter,
[00:10:36.991]contains the telemetry equipment that's needed
[00:10:40.868]to read that meter, either by cellular
[00:10:43.572]or satellite communications,
[00:10:47.675]and deliver that data reliably and frequently
[00:10:51.639]to the water resources manager,
[00:10:53.896]for irrigation water management.
[00:10:58.674]Let's see.
[00:11:01.317]Okay, I wanna go through...
[00:11:03.251]I'd like to go through few of these
[00:11:06.159]water management objectives, that again,
[00:11:09.983]a water resource manager may encounter through their job.
[00:11:15.595]Billing and Accounting.
[00:11:18.422]There are a lot of Water Resource Districts
[00:11:20.435]that are in existence
[00:11:21.958]just to deliver water to their patrons.
[00:11:25.060]Not real common in Nebraska, this is more
[00:11:27.367]of a municipal style of water district.
[00:11:30.796]We see a lot of these out in California.
[00:11:33.332]But for billing and accounting, quantifying the water use,
[00:11:37.145]ensuring billing accuracy, timely reports,
[00:11:40.766]these are all important things for a district
[00:11:43.345]that delvers water, and then has to bill off of that,
[00:11:46.721]off of that volume that they deliver to a given water user.
[00:11:51.603]And then integrating that water use data
[00:11:53.481]back into the office, just so they can use it there.
[00:11:56.561]Very important for that type of application.
[00:12:00.895]Water conservation, of course, is a
[00:12:04.535]very important use of
[00:12:08.452]water flow data.
[00:12:10.556]If you're going to affect water conservation,
[00:12:13.313]you want to engage with your cooperators, your water users.
[00:12:18.049]And the best way to do that,
[00:12:19.452]is sharing information with them,
[00:12:22.703]sharing information on their accurate water use data,
[00:12:26.795]and providing the tools for water use efficiency.
[00:12:30.643]Again, going back to that calculation, of how much water
[00:12:34.544]did you actually apply.
[00:12:36.575]And if you're gonna affect management,
[00:12:38.383]what changes are you going to do,
[00:12:40.205]to improve irrigation water use efficiency?
[00:12:43.040]And of course, transfer of technology is the best way
[00:12:47.142]to achieve a lot of those goals.
[00:12:51.714]Regulations and Allocations.
[00:12:53.727]Of course like, a lot of districts are in existence,
[00:12:59.819]where they have an allocation for either groundwater
[00:13:02.835]or surface water.
[00:13:04.238]And that district has to meet those allocations,
[00:13:07.617]either requirements put on the state,
[00:13:09.336]or by that local district.
[00:13:14.065]Maybe to balance upstream and downstream water rates.
[00:13:18.126]Again, that allocation could be for
[00:13:21.646]distributing surface water or groundwater equitably,
[00:13:26.295]and keeping the water user up to date on
[00:13:30.486]where they're at on their allocation.
[00:13:32.977]I talk to a lot of districts, some here in Nebraska,
[00:13:36.179]some of the NRD's that have allocations.
[00:13:38.630]They talk about how they're constantly getting phone calls
[00:13:41.248]from the farmer, to find out where he's at
[00:13:43.289]on this allocation.
[00:13:44.244]He says, "This is my meter reading, can you tell me
[00:13:46.290]"how much water I've got left".
[00:13:48.622]So there's a challenge there.
[00:13:50.428]How do you get that data to the farmer, so that he can make
[00:13:55.310]the management decisions, to use the water for the best,
[00:13:59.537]the best possible way?
[00:14:02.908]And finally, planning and development.
[00:14:05.415]This is more on the district level for
[00:14:09.433]basin-wide planning, or
[00:14:12.905]regional planning sources.
[00:14:16.140]The district needs to get,
[00:14:18.884]needs to get good data on the quantity
[00:14:21.702]and the timing of use.
[00:14:24.089]And they may want to, they may need to optimize water use,
[00:14:28.417]in times of shortage, or develop trends based on
[00:14:34.105]factors like irrigation type, crop type, soils.
[00:14:37.539]And also integrate this with other data,
[00:14:40.438]like water level data, precipitation,
[00:14:42.848]or other weather factors.
[00:14:45.829]Again, how does that district pull all the data together,
[00:14:51.131]for management on a basin-wide level?
[00:14:55.903]And operations and metering.
[00:14:58.040]This is your basic,
[00:15:01.173]basic surface water district application,
[00:15:04.147]where the surface water district diverts out of the river
[00:15:07.562]into a canal or pipeline.
[00:15:09.568]And they have to deliver to the farmer
[00:15:13.175]where it's often metered at the end.
[00:15:15.608]And they have to deliver a specific flow rate.
[00:15:18.151]And maybe they even bill off of that,
[00:15:21.816]that quantity that they have delivered.
[00:15:23.781]So how do they minimize meter breakdowns?
[00:15:28.425]How do they allocate back,
[00:15:31.092]focus staff resources?
[00:15:33.769]And how do they use what they,
[00:15:35.810]the data where they deliver to this farmer,
[00:15:38.845]to equitably deliver water to other users
[00:15:42.090]within the district?
[00:15:43.580]So again, some of the challenges that they face.
[00:15:51.073]And some of the challenges
[00:15:52.818]associated with typical data collection.
[00:15:55.659]Volunteer reporting, this could be a post card.
[00:15:58.512]I understand they do this down in Kansas.
[00:16:02.059]At the end of the year, the DWR sends out a post card,
[00:16:05.146]the farmer fills it out, sends it back in.
[00:16:08.200]And that's how they, how they determine whether
[00:16:11.893]he is within his allocation, or not.
[00:16:15.778]It's typically annual, typically manual data entry,
[00:16:20.017]so it's very labor intensive.
[00:16:22.494]Manual reading by staff, of course the district staff
[00:16:26.282]has to go out and physically read the meter.
[00:16:29.548]Which again, is typically only annually, maybe monthly.
[00:16:34.207]And again, manual data entry is required.
[00:16:39.358]Some districts have drive-by systems.
[00:16:41.768]I've heard of some districts out in California have these.
[00:16:46.766]My house meter in Aurora,
[00:16:50.988]is read by one of these.
[00:16:52.761]Less labor intensive, but the staff still has to go out
[00:16:55.509]and drive by that particular house.
[00:16:59.222]And of course, at least this way,
[00:17:01.290]you reduce some data entry effects, but
[00:17:04.622]they still have to go out and physically drive by the site.
[00:17:08.860]And then you have traditional telemetry,
[00:17:11.353]excuse me, traditional telemetry systems,
[00:17:14.134]where you can get good frequent data,
[00:17:17.133]but it still requires a maintenance of several components.
[00:17:21.050]And I'll show you some picture of some of these here,
[00:17:23.207]in a little bit.
[00:17:25.857]Going along with those challenges, a lot of times
[00:17:29.620]it's time consuming with being manually read and data entry.
[00:17:35.480]Of course, that's where human error gets introduced.
[00:17:39.139]It could be irregular or inconsistent.
[00:17:42.960]Maybe the district intends to get out and read the meters
[00:17:46.383]every month, but it turns into every two months,
[00:17:49.414]maybe it's every year.
[00:17:51.902]And you can have inaccurate data, infrequent intervals,
[00:17:56.234]and of course, it's expensive.
[00:17:58.819]It's expensive to send a staff member out and
[00:18:02.607]physically read the meter.
[00:18:04.005]And then you also have vehicle wear-and-tear,
[00:18:07.871]and fuel expense.
[00:18:09.216]So some of the challenges that districts face,
[00:18:13.615]with regular data collection.
[00:18:17.509]The solution that McCrometer has come up with,
[00:18:21.372]with FlowConnect, is essentially a,
[00:18:25.878]any
[00:18:27.242]water specialties or McCrometer meter can be equipped
[00:18:31.224]with FlowConnect, which uses satellite
[00:18:34.362]or cellular communications,
[00:18:37.801]which collects the data from the meter,
[00:18:40.729]and delivers it to a secure McCrometer webserver,
[00:18:44.281]which serves that out to the water user,
[00:18:47.469]either
[00:18:49.530]by PC going to the web,
[00:18:53.424]or going to their mobile device.
[00:18:55.814]It can also use
[00:18:58.477]a customer database.
[00:18:59.791]We can also setup a computer link, for those
[00:19:03.214]that are good with programming language,
[00:19:06.750]can setup a database link to a
[00:19:08.998]custom consumer database that already exists.
[00:19:13.076]And this is something I'm talking to some districts
[00:19:15.891]right here in Nebraska about, right now.
[00:19:21.757]Some of the features and benefits of a system like this.
[00:19:26.461]With a mechanical register, the nice thing
[00:19:29.273]about FlowConnect is with a...
[00:19:32.491]This is sort of a snapshot of a
[00:19:36.479]part of a traditional telemetry system.
[00:19:38.734]A lot of times you'll see a transmitter
[00:19:40.831]installed on the meter, and a cable coming off
[00:19:43.222]of that transmitter going to an external RTU,
[00:19:46.732]mounted on the pole.
[00:19:48.335]But we've eliminated that cable.
[00:19:50.694]And in this case, if any of you have worked
[00:19:53.848]with equipment like that, you know that cables
[00:19:56.252]introduce noise to a system.
[00:19:59.493]A lot of times, if it's near
[00:20:02.302]a VFD or other type of electrical disturbance,
[00:20:06.831]it can introduce noise, which can create false pulses, and
[00:20:12.391]hinder your data.
[00:20:14.725]So we've eliminated that cable,
[00:20:16.860]to eliminate that external noise.
[00:20:19.356]And the other thing with a pulse generator,
[00:20:22.983]a lot of you may be familiar with this,
[00:20:27.627]data loggers, pulse counters,
[00:20:30.927]to a device like that, a pulse is a pulse.
[00:20:33.693]So if you have forward flow, or backward flow
[00:20:36.859]through a meter, a pulse is a pulse,
[00:20:39.910]it can't tell the forward or reverse flow because from that.
[00:20:44.598]But with FlowConnect, we've integrated the technology
[00:20:47.546]so that it recognize, so that the telemetry itself
[00:20:51.560]recognizes the forward flow, from the backward flow.
[00:20:54.767]And it can subtract out the backward flow,
[00:20:58.512]or at least not count it as a positive,
[00:21:01.527]positive towards the totalization.
[00:21:04.380]That's with the mechanical register.
[00:21:08.556]One of the benefits with the digital register,
[00:21:11.503]is what we call ExactRead technology.
[00:21:14.990]You may be familiar, every McCrometer meter
[00:21:18.625]or water specialties meter, you can build with
[00:21:21.522]a digital register.
[00:21:23.259]Which has some benefits, like the ability to do
[00:21:26.193]a remote mount register.
[00:21:29.544]In this case, the real advantage with FlowConnect is,
[00:21:34.557]with the digital register, you're transmitting
[00:21:37.742]the actual totalizer number.
[00:21:40.015]You're not transmitting pulses,
[00:21:41.705]a pulse that's correlated with a volume.
[00:21:45.439]You're transmitting the exact totalizer number.
[00:21:52.169]And what that ensures, is that the totalizer reading
[00:21:55.821]that you see on the website, matches the meter exactly.
[00:22:01.158]And you might think, that's not that big of a deal, but
[00:22:04.674]I've seen some cases, Colorado for example,
[00:22:08.973]they have that requirement for telemetry systems in meters,
[00:22:13.296]that basically 100% accuracy,
[00:22:15.751]what's on the meter has to match the website.
[00:22:18.474]It's something that's been a challenge to me,
[00:22:20.839]as long as I've been in this business.
[00:22:22.661]And I'm excited now that we have that to offer, and it's,
[00:22:29.383]it's something I'm looking forward to using there,
[00:22:31.552]in the state of Colorado.
[00:22:32.985]But other states have that, as well.
[00:22:39.292]Streamlined design, again I mentioned,
[00:22:42.384]basically, what you see here, is everything you need
[00:22:45.852]to read that meter remotely.
[00:22:47.636]No external cables,
[00:22:50.068]no pole to mount an external RTU,
[00:22:52.842]and a solar panel, and again, no cable to connect it all.
[00:22:57.147]All of that external equipment is gone,
[00:22:59.486]so it's a much more streamlined installation.
[00:23:03.700]The enclosure on the meter is an IP67 rated
[00:23:08.583]water-resistant rating, so it's a very durable enclosure,
[00:23:13.996]and withstands a wide range of temperatures.
[00:23:18.986]So any of those water management objectives
[00:23:22.709]that you're faced with, whichever position you're in
[00:23:26.122]as a water manager, FlowConnect enables regular
[00:23:30.317]and reliable data to be delivered
[00:23:32.969]to the water resource managers, and to the water users,
[00:23:37.747]with far less, far less labor.
[00:23:41.749]Reporting intervals can be down to 15 minutes.
[00:23:44.406]Typically,
[00:23:46.337]typically with the standard installation,
[00:23:48.830]it's usually once or twice a day,
[00:23:50.273]but we can get down to every 15 minute data.
[00:23:54.001]And it's easy to retrieve the data,
[00:23:55.904]again from your, from a PC, or a mobile device.
[00:24:01.232]And very simple installation.
[00:24:03.419]Since it's a once piece design, it installs just like
[00:24:07.596]a standard flow meter, again, with no external parts,
[00:24:11.878]cables, poles, anything like that.
[00:24:14.367]It can be preassembled, on a brand new meter,
[00:24:18.071]from the factory, or it can be retrofitted
[00:24:21.363]on existing meters in less than 30 minutes.
[00:24:30.053]And just a little summary again, on those benefits.
[00:24:33.536]ExactRead technology enables the meter to match
[00:24:36.683]the website exactly.
[00:24:39.611]Much more affordable design,
[00:24:41.853]compared to traditional telemetry systems.
[00:24:44.910]Frequent data, and again, available on
[00:24:48.464]new meters, and you can retrofit existing meters.
[00:24:53.917]I just wanna tell you a little bit about
[00:24:57.029]some of the configurations that are available.
[00:25:00.168]Like I mentioned, it can be,
[00:25:02.960]FlowConnect is available on any of our
[00:25:05.664]McCrometer or water specialties meters.
[00:25:09.500]The register can be digital or mechanical.
[00:25:13.343]And the communications are satellite or cellular.
[00:25:16.837]And with cellular, we have options for AT&T,
[00:25:19.567]T-Mobile, or Verizon.
[00:25:22.609]So quite a few options there.
[00:25:25.216]Power can be battery-only,
[00:25:26.996]which is an internal lithium battery.
[00:25:29.712]Or it can be a rechargeable battery, which in that case,
[00:25:32.409]needs a solar panel.
[00:25:33.620]So you would have external parts there.
[00:25:37.736]And one thing I didn't mention yet, we can take inputs.
[00:25:41.668]We can take a minimal amount of inputs,
[00:25:46.130]from some other sensors, like a rain gauge,
[00:25:49.825]or a pressure sensor, or both.
[00:25:53.733]Pressure sensor, either you can tap the pipes,
[00:25:56.100]so that you're reading pipeline pressure,
[00:25:58.949]or we can even hook up a pressure transducer,
[00:26:02.932]to measure water level down a well.
[00:26:05.238]We did that with one of our beta sites, out in California.
[00:26:10.530]We do have outputs, like a digital pulse,
[00:26:14.383]or a four to 20 milliamp output.
[00:26:16.616]Say the farmer wants to send a pulse into his pivot panel.
[00:26:19.782]Even though he has FlowConnect, we can do that,
[00:26:22.563]with a digital register, and a pulse output.
[00:26:26.803]And we do have some other options, like a remote mount.
[00:26:30.613]Say you have the meter in a pit, and you want to bring,
[00:26:34.532]bring the register up to eye level.
[00:26:37.356]You can do that with a digital register, and a remote mount.
[00:26:41.531]Extension, antenna options, and solar, or even AC power,
[00:26:46.271]if you have AC power at the meter.
[00:26:53.305]Going on from that, I'd like to
[00:26:56.905]tell you about a few applications that have been made with,
[00:27:03.145]with some projects that I've done with a couple of districts
[00:27:05.416]right here in Nebraska.
[00:27:07.582]One being the Central Nebraska Public Power
[00:27:10.339]and Irrigation District, over in Holdrege,
[00:27:12.981]and the Upper Republican NRD, in Imperial.
[00:27:18.352]With both of these projects, we had one telemetry platform.
[00:27:23.370]And what I think is interesting here, is the district
[00:27:26.932]was able to receive valuable information,
[00:27:30.856]or valuable water use data on the district level,
[00:27:34.076]and the farmer was also able to receive valuable information
[00:27:38.783]for on-farm water management.
[00:27:42.165]One telemetry platform, two different uses.
[00:27:47.643]With
[00:27:49.008]the project out in Central, a few years ago
[00:27:52.257]I sat down with Marcia Tromkey, again another one
[00:27:56.011]of Dean's alumni here, another Water Science alumni.
[00:28:01.714]We sat down and we wrote a grant application
[00:28:04.578]to the Nebraskan Environmental Trust, for a radio network,
[00:28:08.303]where the plan was to install 86 sites,
[00:28:13.923]at 86 meters, put telemetry on 86 meters over three years.
[00:28:18.463]And we did this with long-range radios,
[00:28:22.065]from a sister company, to McCrometer,
[00:28:24.651]and we also put some weather stations out
[00:28:27.311]to do what we called ET Indexing.
[00:28:31.174]And I'll explain that in a little bit here.
[00:28:33.689]I've got a picture of the project site.
[00:28:38.314]This red dot up here at the North end,
[00:28:41.063]is a radio tower, where the district has a,
[00:28:44.297]has a structure already there, with a radio tower.
[00:28:47.319]Which is nice, because with a radio system,
[00:28:50.585]height is your friend, so it's looking down on this valley,
[00:28:54.402]where we had radios installed at all of these blue dots,
[00:28:58.856]throughout the watershed.
[00:29:00.407]And these red arrows are a hypothetical path
[00:29:03.716]for all of the radio transmissions.
[00:29:09.640]This gives you an idea of what the density was
[00:29:13.289]in that particular area, and
[00:29:16.613]86 sites were reinstalled with the telemetry equipment.
[00:29:20.567]And this structure up here at the North end,
[00:29:23.337]is where there was an antenna, that collected
[00:29:25.795]all this information.
[00:29:26.904]It goes down to what we call a gateway, which is
[00:29:29.964]basically, the bridge to transfer the data
[00:29:35.851]from the field here, over to the internet,
[00:29:38.513]and make it available to the district and the water users.
[00:29:43.269]I just wanted to show you a picture of one of the sites,
[00:29:46.277]where we did,
[00:29:49.511]where we did installation.
[00:29:50.935]You can see here, and this was what I call,
[00:29:55.018]what I referred to earlier as
[00:29:56.322]a typical telemetry installation.
[00:29:58.739]You have a transmitter on the meter down here,
[00:30:01.631]you have cables going up to a radio transmitter on the pole,
[00:30:05.844]a solar panel, and a tipping gauge rain bucket.
[00:30:09.883]That's one thing, we put tipping rain buckets
[00:30:12.380]at just about every site.
[00:30:13.952]So we had good local rainfall data.
[00:30:18.140]This is another site.
[00:30:21.017]What I think is neat here, is you can see two meters,
[00:30:24.378]one on each side, with transmitters going up to one radio,
[00:30:30.103]and a rain bucket there.
[00:30:32.691]So we were able to piggyback one on each other,
[00:30:35.384]and save 'em a little bit of telemetry equipment,
[00:30:38.046]by running two radios into one,
[00:30:40.005]or two meters into one radio.
[00:30:44.314]And we also put weather stations out,
[00:30:46.829]a couple weather stations in that little watershed,
[00:30:51.191]where we had everything we needed for ET, temperature,
[00:30:54.794]rain fall, relative humidity, solar radiation,
[00:30:58.485]wind speed, and direction.
[00:31:00.143]So we could calculate ET for that site.
[00:31:05.030]And with that, I mentioned ET Indexing, we were able to
[00:31:09.227]deliver to the farmers, not only their
[00:31:11.845]accurate water application data, local rain fall data,
[00:31:16.972]and local ET, so that they could do ET Indexing,
[00:31:21.386]which as I described...
[00:31:24.079]They're basically trying to apply water as close as possible
[00:31:27.947]to crop water use.
[00:31:29.486]Trying to match their application to local ET.
[00:31:36.108]I believe last year was the third year,
[00:31:38.173]we've got all the equipment installed, and as it happened,
[00:31:40.878]just last week we had a training with the district staff,
[00:31:45.679]and the farmers involved.
[00:31:47.456]And that's just to help them get the data off of the website
[00:31:52.428]and also take some feedback from them,
[00:31:55.179]on what they wanna see with their data.
[00:31:58.592]Again, not only did the farmers get good information
[00:32:02.080]for on-farm water use efficiency, but the district
[00:32:05.454]is also getting aggregate water use data,
[00:32:08.179]in that specific watershed, at E67.
[00:32:11.601]So they know the amount that's being delivered
[00:32:14.273]in real-time, every day.
[00:32:16.603]And if they don't need as much there,
[00:32:18.785]then they can send it down the canal, to somebody else.
[00:32:22.694]Good data for the district, good data for the farmer.
[00:32:28.436]I'll move on to the Upper Republican NRD.
[00:32:32.287]A couple of years ago, I was contacted by them.
[00:32:34.899]They were interested in putting telemetry out on the meters,
[00:32:38.578]their meters, in the Upper Republican NRD.
[00:32:43.146]And just to give you a little feedback, a little background
[00:32:46.248]on Upper Republican NRD.
[00:32:48.330]They have about 3,300 irrigation wells in the district,
[00:32:52.808]and all of their wells have been metered
[00:32:55.699]since late 70's, early 80's.
[00:33:00.669]Fortunately, a lot of them are McCrometer meters.
[00:33:03.476]And this is possibly...
[00:33:05.914]I know it's the oldest in Nebraska, but it's possibly
[00:33:08.119]the oldest district with water allocations in the country.
[00:33:13.505]They were the first ones to implement
[00:33:15.577]a groundwater control area,
[00:33:17.663]under the Groundwater Management and Protection Act.
[00:33:24.938]So what their goal was, is to eventually
[00:33:29.464]monitor all of their wells, all of their meters,
[00:33:32.900]with telemetry, across the whole district, all 3,300.
[00:33:36.315]And of course, that takes money.
[00:33:39.631]I started working with, a little over a year ago,
[00:33:41.975]I started working with Nate Jenkins, the Assistant Manager,
[00:33:44.979]and we've been successful so far, with one
[00:33:50.119]successful grant through the Bureau of Reclamation,
[00:33:53.282]to fund $300,000 worth of telemetry in the district,
[00:33:58.857]to basically get us started with meters,
[00:34:01.389]and some other sensors.
[00:34:05.426]We're not only looking at meters,
[00:34:07.901]the NRD also has a system of
[00:34:11.679]about, I think it's 1,400 dedicated
[00:34:14.584]groundwater level monitoring wells.
[00:34:16.448]We've already put...
[00:34:19.387]We've already put the telemetry equipment in,
[00:34:21.752]to monitor all of these, all of these observation wells
[00:34:26.584]for groundwater levels in real-time.
[00:34:29.139]And we've,
[00:34:31.241]last year we put out about
[00:34:35.115]17 or 18, or as of the end of last year,
[00:34:37.661]we had about 17 or 18 meters with FlowConnect,
[00:34:41.449]or telemetry on them.
[00:34:44.373]It's sort of a pilot phase.
[00:34:45.633]We tried some different cell modems,
[00:34:48.249]different cell companies.
[00:34:49.571]I think we tried Viaero, Verizon, and we tried
[00:34:52.833]some satellite units out there too,
[00:34:54.498]just to get the best fit for that district,
[00:34:57.084]for the mode of communications.
[00:34:59.594]They also, with the timing of when they contacted us,
[00:35:04.337]2016, we were able to get a few beta sites out with them.
[00:35:08.808]As the product was just coming out of development,
[00:35:12.018]and we used,
[00:35:13.709]we used them to try a few beta units out in the field.
[00:35:17.368]So we've got total of about 17 or 18 units,
[00:35:20.867]FlowConnect units, out in the field,
[00:35:23.948]and looking forward to adding more this year.
[00:35:26.934]They're also looking at adding some weather stations too,
[00:35:29.953]as part of this project.
[00:35:32.240]So again,
[00:35:34.702]with this project, we were able to,
[00:35:39.447]we were able to provide valuable data,
[00:35:42.387]valuable water use data, to the farmers,
[00:35:45.537]and also give the district some valuable water use data,
[00:35:49.646]for their allocation program.
[00:35:54.888]Some closing thoughts.
[00:35:56.268]I just wanna reiterate again, that water management
[00:35:59.337]starts with the meter.
[00:36:01.715]And I strongly encourage using meters as a management tool,
[00:36:06.449]before we get to regulations.
[00:36:10.849]And finally, I would assert that technology
[00:36:14.871]including real-time flow meter readings
[00:36:17.645]will improve water use management.
[00:36:21.785]Thank you, do you have any questions?
[00:36:24.742](applause)
[00:36:26.099]Thank you, very interesting.
[00:36:28.430]One question about adding another key technology,
[00:36:31.750]is telemetry shutoff.
[00:36:33.416]Have you considered adding that as a third component,
[00:36:36.404]so when you have certain rain events,
[00:36:38.591]you have the flow data, you know it rained an inch,
[00:36:41.201]you can also shutoff in real-time.
[00:36:43.322]Was sort of part of the portfolio?
[00:36:45.997]And a second question, if you'll allow me,
[00:36:47.609]is have you also made the connection to sort of
[00:36:50.232]providing this data to consumers, at the downstream end?
[00:36:53.286]If you know you wanna buy a certain crop type,
[00:36:56.706]you wanna know the water and energy use of that crop,
[00:36:58.901]and you might pay a little extra money
[00:37:00.956]for that particular crop,
[00:37:01.945]given those water and energy demands.
[00:37:04.576]Thank you.
[00:37:05.409]Ah, good question.
[00:37:08.022]Answer your first question:
[00:37:10.858]no, control is not part of FlowConnect.
[00:37:15.240]I wish it were, but right now, McCrometer is focused on
[00:37:20.702]monitoring for it's telemetry aspects.
[00:37:26.188]I'm sure you're probably familiar with
[00:37:27.259]a lot of the pivot companies, they've focused on control,
[00:37:30.701]with speeding up, slowing down, stopping,
[00:37:33.938]starting the systems.
[00:37:37.559]And that's great, I think that's very valuable
[00:37:39.791]in the pivot industry, and others.
[00:37:42.056]But right now, control isn't a focus of FlowConnect,
[00:37:45.478]it's more observation and management.
[00:37:50.713]You're second question:
[00:37:54.411]It sounds like you're asking about
[00:37:57.733]water marketing, essentially.
[00:38:00.585](mumbled words from audience)
[00:38:04.219]I think data like this, is gonna be critical
[00:38:09.270]for systems like that.
[00:38:11.972]I mentioned telemetry out in Colorado.
[00:38:16.554]There is a group in Sterling, Colorado,
[00:38:19.584]I can't remember the name of their group,
[00:38:21.030]several water users that,
[00:38:23.840]that are well owners up and down
[00:38:25.948]the South Platte River in Colorado.
[00:38:29.084]And several years ago, they were trying to put together
[00:38:32.088]a cooperative for trading water,
[00:38:35.063]up and down the Platte River,
[00:38:36.980]similar to what you asked about.
[00:38:40.094]And I don't believe the co-op ever got off the ground,
[00:38:43.099]and at the time, we didn't have FlowConnect
[00:38:45.919]as a technology for them.
[00:38:48.701]But I really think that this technology
[00:38:51.251]would be critical for
[00:38:54.337]what I call water trading, a water trading system,
[00:38:58.081]or a water market system, like that.
[00:39:03.347]Okay, thank you, other questions?
[00:39:10.345]Oh, can it Bob, 'cause I'm a--
[00:39:12.497]It is Bob.
[00:39:13.330]Is there a potential for interface
[00:39:15.036]with all that data,
[00:39:17.609]on a farm with the management of a center pivot system?
[00:39:22.516]It's a definite possibility.
[00:39:26.089]FlowConnect does have the ability for,
[00:39:30.078]for certain digital and analog outputs.
[00:39:33.696]So it can go into...
[00:39:38.425]We can send a signal directly into the pivot panel,
[00:39:42.229]so that it could go into a system,
[00:39:44.467]whether it's Valley, T-L, Reinke, Zimmatic.
[00:39:50.958]There's also the possibility, where
[00:39:54.966]if we deliver data to,
[00:39:58.266]to a web-based server,
[00:40:00.118]and somebody already has a database setup,
[00:40:03.719]where they're storing a lot of that data,
[00:40:06.208]the computer link can be created
[00:40:08.397]to deliver the data to that external database.
[00:40:11.210]So, yes, the data can be joined up.
[00:40:13.868](mumbled words from audience)
[00:40:15.866]Well,
[00:40:20.260]with the other pivot systems, that I'm not sure,
[00:40:23.897]I couldn't answer that.
[00:40:25.688]But right now, we are working on,
[00:40:28.879]we are working on
[00:40:33.770]projects with districts, where we'll end up
[00:40:35.962]creating a link to a district database.
[00:40:39.412]One particular application we did up in North Dakota.
[00:40:45.112]A few years ago, when the oil prices were really high,
[00:40:48.039]and fracking was really prevalent up in North Dakota,
[00:40:53.010]there were a lot of water users that
[00:40:57.305]were, they were essentially selling water
[00:40:59.167]to the oil companies, for fracking.
[00:41:01.468]So there was the
[00:41:03.549]enticement to go over your permit allocation.
[00:41:08.809]The state put a requirement on
[00:41:12.622]permits in the state of North Dakota, that they had to:
[00:41:17.692]one, had to have telemetry; and two, they had to interface
[00:41:20.962]with the North Dakota State Water Database.
[00:41:24.556]So we wrote the programming language,
[00:41:26.446]to communicate Advantage Pro, our software with
[00:41:30.390]the North Dakota State Water Database, and consequently,
[00:41:34.567]sold quite a few telemetry systems up there.
[00:41:37.292](mumbled words from audience)
[00:41:40.622]It is, it is.
[00:41:42.925]And honestly, yeah, regulation sells a lot of flow meters.
[00:41:47.437]But, that's my,
[00:41:50.661]my premise is, let's try to use the meters
[00:41:53.004]as a management tool, before we ever get to regulation.
[00:41:59.064]Okay, another question.
[00:42:02.887]I had a question about your project in the Upper Republican.
[00:42:06.464]As I recall, historically, they've had a staff read
[00:42:10.331]kind of system of there.
[00:42:12.405]And so, are you doing a comparison,
[00:42:15.526]between their staff read, and your telemetry system?
[00:42:19.678]Well, we're just getting started, in Upper Republican, and
[00:42:26.627]that's something that we haven't done yet,
[00:42:29.101]but it's something I can always bring up to them.
[00:42:34.987]To see what the correlation is, between staff read,
[00:42:39.077]staff readings and the telemetry readings.
[00:42:44.239]Of course, as I see it, the real advantage in,
[00:42:48.498]the real advantage in Upper Republican isn't necessarily
[00:42:52.565]achieving the accuracy of the reading,
[00:42:55.727]but it's the real-time data that's delivered to the farmer,
[00:42:59.654]during the season, for management purposes.
[00:43:02.190]And also, to the district,
[00:43:05.031]for management on the district level.
[00:43:07.985]But that's a good suggestion.
[00:43:09.515]We'll talk to the district, about comparing the two.
[00:43:16.065]Anybody else, questions?
[00:43:20.761]If not, let's give Ken another hand for a nice presentation.
[00:43:23.730]Thank you.
[00:43:24.563](applause)

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Building on Irrigation Flow Meter Fundamentals

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