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Boil Water Advisory Lifted

The area’s boil water advisory has been lifted.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) officials announced the lift in a Thursday afternoon news conference. MLGW president and CEO J.T. Young said the utility got the clearance to lift the order from state officials Thursday about an hour before the 3 p.m. news conference.

“The patient has been released from the hospital,” Young said, continuing a metaphor for MLGW’s water system he’s used all week. “The patient is doing well and is able to exist independently and doing very, very well.”

There are now no restrictions remaining on the normal use of drinking water supplied to all MLGW water customers. However, Young asked for customers to continue to conserve water until 10 a.m. Friday. This move is intended to, hopefully, get the system through what Young expects to be a peak in water usage after news of the lift is announced.

The boil water advisory went into effect last Friday. Freezing temperatures burst water mains. Hundreds of millions of gallons of water was leaked and lowered levels in area reservoirs.

MLGW officials feared the levels could bring contaminants into the water. However, Young said Thursday lab tests showed no contaminants were ever found in the city’s water.

Here are some details from MLGW:

What customers should do next?

• Turn on the main water valve if it has been closed.

• Flush any faucet a minimum of two minutes to ensure clearing of the line serving the faucet. Begin with the faucet that is highest up in your home or building and then open the other faucets one at a time, moving from the highest floor to the lowest.

• Discard any ice made during the boil water notice.

• Check water filters (in faucets, refrigerators, and elsewhere) and replace if necessary.

• Owners and managers of large buildings should ensure that their entire system is flushed and that storage tanks are drained and refilled.

If the water is discolored:

• Flush water pipes by running the water until it is clear.

• Do not wash clothes if the water is discolored. Wait until the water runs clear at the tap. Wash a load of dark clothes first.

If you have questions regarding this matter, you may contact MLGW’s water quality assurance lab at (901) 320-3950, or email waterlab@mlgw.org.

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MLGW: System Improving, Boil Water Advisory Continues

The Memphis area’s water system is improving, officials said in an update Tuesday, February 23rd, but the boil water advisory remains and officials are continuing to ask residents to conserve water.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water’s (MLGW) water system froze and broke in many places in winter storms that wracked the area for the last week. The utility issued a water boil advisory Friday as freezing temperatures broke water pipes and mains throughout its service area.

Leaking water reduced water pressure across the system and officials worried it could allow contaminants to get into the water. However, the advisory was a precautionary move, and MLGW officials said they have not found any contaminants in the the water.

During a daily update Tuesday, MLGW president and CEO J.T. Young compared the water system to a hospital patient.

“Today, I think, is optimistic,” Young said. “Today, the patient is out of [the Intensive Care Unit] and doing better. We’re looking forward to even better news in the next day or two.”

MLGW officials have been using a red-yellow-green system (with green being best) to illustrate the scope of the system’s troubles. On Monday, it was described as “light red.” On Tuesday, the system was upgraded to “yellow.”

Pumping stations are performing better. Water pressure is rising in many parts of the system. The amount of gallons of water leaked each day is beginning to stem.

Officials said the freezing temperatures froze and broke 89 water mains so far. Crews repaired 12 mains Monday and were working on 12 Tuesday. To date, water had been shut off at more than 4,000 residences for instances of frozen, burst pipes.

However, Young asked, again, for MLGW customers to conserve water. He said, also, that the boil water advisory would remain but did not give any firm timeline for its end.

The update came on the same day the Memphis City Council approved a resolution supporting MLGW’s requests of customers and temporarily shutting down car-washing facilities.

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MLGW: Water Situation Improving, No Timeline For End

The city’s water system situation is improving but there’s still no firm timeline for when the water boil advisory will end.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) issued a water boil advisory Friday as freezing temperatures broke water pipes and mains throughout its service area. Leaking water reduced water pressure across the system and officials worried it could allow contaminants to get into the water. However, it was a precautionary move, and MLGW officials said they had not found any contaminants in the the water.

But the system is now “continually moving in the right direction,” MLGW president and CEO J.T. Young said Monday afternoon. The system is still “in the red” but is on the cusp of “moving into a much better phase.”

Young said MLGW crews have repaired about 80 water mains and were working on a couple more Monday. However, he said the issue now may be property leaks happening in residences, “where customers may not yet have realized their water lines are gushing water.”

Nick Newman, MLGW’s vice president of engineering and operations, said water pressure has improved in South Memphis and in parts of East Memphis. However, water pressure remains low Downtown, in Midtown, and in areas on the edges of MLGW’s service area.

He said the situation with water pumping stations is that they’re “not out of the red. It was deep red and now it’s light red and moving to the yellow category.”

However, Newman said he could not predict when the situation would pass. However, he said MLGW would provide daily updates on it.

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MLGW Installing Free Air-Conditioning Units For Senior Citizens

CREDIT: MLGW

window_unit.jpg

  • MLGW

The summer has finally approached, and citizens are burdened with the task of staying as cool as possible.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) in collaboration with the Neighborhood Christian Center will make that task a little easier for some with their “Play It Cool” initiative.

The partnership is donating 50 window air-conditioning units to disadvantaged senior citizens through the initiative, which they implement each year. On Tuesday, July 8th, the application process and screening for the free units will be held at Neighborhood Christian Center (785 Jackson Avenue) from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

According to a MLGW press release, to qualify, applicants must be Shelby County residents aged 60 or older, receive a low-income, and reside in a home that lacks operable air conditioning.

Applicants will need their Tennessee state ID or drivers license and their most recent pay stub or Social Security Income statement to apply. If an applicant has a physical disability but doesn’t meet the age requirement, they must bring the proper certification information.

After an individual is screened and pre-qualified, MLGW will conduct field inspections at their residence to verify that it meets installation requirements. Subsequently, a window air-conditioning unit will be installed at their house by a MLGW employee free of charge.

For more information on necessary qualifications and credentials for eligibility, Play It Cool applicants can contact the Neighborhood Christian Center’s hotline at (901) 881-6013.

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More Than 7,000 MLGW Customers Remain Powerless

CREDIT: MLGW

MLGWunnamed.jpg

  • MLGW

Nearly 43,000 Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) customers lost power after a cluster of thunderstorms traveled through the Memphis area yesterday.

Between 1:30 and 4 p.m. Thursday (June 5th), 42,797 homes and businesses throughout Shelby County experienced power outages after harsh winds associated with the thunderstorms damaged utility poles and power lines.

By Friday afternoon, MLGW crews had restored power for more than 34,000 customers. But there are still more than 7,000 customers without electricity.

MLGW President Jerry Collins said the area’s biggest circuits serving the highest number of customers were restored first. Circuits serving a smaller amount of customers are next in line.

“What we’re down to now are hundreds of small outages that affect one, two, three, four, five customers,” Collins said. “That’s going to take longer, because it’s a much slower process. We should have everybody back in business by Sunday midnight.”

Customers without power today and into the weekend are encouraged to stay hydrated and to seek shelter temporarily elsewhere, if necessary. MLGW recommends customers to keep survival kits ready for power outages and other service disruptions. These kits can include things such as bottled water, canned food, prescription medicines, flashlights, a radio, batteries, and a first-aid kit.

Considering that thunderstorms are in the weather forecast for Friday as well as scattered showers this weekend, restoration efforts could be slowed. Collins, however, assures that MLGW will do its best to fully restore power expeditiously.

“We have all crews working, and we have eight crews in from out of town to help us,” Collins said. “We’re going to go as fast as we can and try to get power restored just as quickly as possible for all the remaining customers.”

To report an power outage, customers should call (901) 544-6500.
Outage numbers can be tracked via MLGW’s outage map at mlgw.com/outagemap.

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MLGW Leads Ranking of Top 50 Utilities Using Social Media

MLGW.JPG


Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) not only manages the city’s utilities, they also ensure customers receive feedback online.

And they’ve been recognized as the number one utility company that does just that. In March, research and consulting firm Northeast Group, LLC conducted a week-long study surveying the top 50 utility companies in the country regarding their social media efforts. Based off of their findings, MLGW ranked number one among the utility companies in the nation that assisted customers on a timely basis through social media. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) ranked second and Dominion Virginia Power ranked third.

Ben Gardner, president of Northeast Group, said the firm conducted a content analysis of the various social media postings and mobile app offerings of the top 50 utilities, and through that were able to score each of the utilities together and rank them in order.

“For Twitter hostings, it would be things like how responsive were the utilities? How quickly did they respond to customer requests?” Gardner said. “Another thing was the quality of the content. Were the utilities posting energy-saving tips and safety tips of value to customers? How high was the value of the content they were posting? Each utility was scored on those criteria.”

The survey took place over one week in March. During that week, Gardner said MLGW posted 77 tweets and the median response time of how quickly they got back to customers was five minutes. LADWP came in second place with 134 tweets and a median response time of about 34 minutes. Dominion was third place with 62 tweets and a median response time of about 18 minutes, according to Gardner.

“We’re extremely honored to be recognized,” said Richard Thompson, senior communications specialist for MLGW. “We’ve been recognized by our peers before but to be recognized again by an independent study for the Top 50 utilities, we’re really honored, and most importantly, we thank our customers and our followers on Facebook and Twitter for believing in us, following us, and interacting with us. We take great pride in those relationships that we’ve established.”

Thompson said MLGW was one of the initial utilities to utilize social media back in 2008. However, it was 2009 when MLGW established a variety of social media channels and its staff began to communicate with customers via Internet significantly.

“We had a major storm in June 2009. It knocked out power for a lot of customers over several days. That really helped integrate our social media to our communications efforts,” Thompson said. “That was really the first time that we live-tweeted or did some continuous tweeting about the outage situation. Customers really appreciated the fact that it felt like we were there during their outages and they could communicate with us and get ready information about their outages. The fact that our customers fill like they can reach out to us and communicate with us when they need to, it just opens up another avenue for us to serve customers.”

Prior to the storm in 2009, which left more than 140,000 customers without power, MLGW had only 220 followers. The following week, after power had been completely restored, MLGW’s Twitter following increased to over 1,500 followers.

Northeast Group’s survey also ranked the top utilities in the country for mobile apps. MLGW ranked third on this list. San Diego Gas and Electric took the number one slot and Con Edison in New York was selected second in the category.

This portion of the survey was based on the type of functionality that the mobile app boasted. If the app offered energy saving tips, allowed customers to pay bills, and provided utility related information such as reporting outages and receiving estimated times of restoration, conservation tips, and a mobile-friendly outage map.

“In general, utilities have some room for improvement in their customer engagement,” Gardner said with regard to what influenced the survey. “We think that social media and mobile app are very effective channels for utilities to better communicate with their customers.”

Thompson said several thousand people have downloaded MLGW’s free mobile app, which can be accessed by both iPhones and Androids. MLGW has nearly 12,000 Twitter followers, 8,000 Facebook likes, an award-winning blog and website, and pages on Pinterest, Youtube, and Flicker.

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MLGW Constructing $2 Million Compressed Natural Gas Facility

The price of conventional petroleum gas by the gallon has increased lately, but there’s an alternate route drivers can take to save a few dollars.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), made from methane stored at a high pressure, currently goes for $1.69 by the gallon locally. Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) opened its first CNG public fueling station at its North Service Center (1130 Tupelo St.) this past July.

MLGW CNG-fueled truck

  • MLGW CNG-fueled truck

And the utility company is currently in the construction phase of a new $2 million CNG facility.

MLGW president Jerry Collins said the facility would be located at the company’s South Service Center (2981 South Center Road). It’s slated to open this July.

“It’ll have two islands, four lanes, [and] two high-flow nozzles, which will let the trucks fill up faster than what we currently have at the other facility,” Collins said. “The other aspect of the facility on the south side, it’ll let us expand our fleet of natural gas vehicles, so that vehicles stationed at the south work center can fill up [there].”

MLGW currently has 76 natural gas vehicles and more than 20 on order.

Collins said there’s been an increase in commercial and industrial vehicles using the CNG fueling station at the MLGW North Service Center.

“In March, we sold 10,000 gallons of compressed natural gas,” Collins said. “We’re seeing growth every month. When we build this new facility, we anticipate having three firms that have long haul tractor-trailer trucks to be filling up at the new station. Those three firms alone are going to be 20,000 to 40,000 gallons of CNG a month.”

The current price of CNG per gallon has only increased a dime since late last year. The price is anticipated to drop as the weather warms up locally.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center website, CNG powers about 112,000 vehicles in the country and roughly 14.8 million vehicles worldwide. CNG vehicles provide environmental benefits such as reduced pollution and lower levels of emissions. Some new vehicles are already designed to take CNG, but older models must be converted to use the fuel. It costs about $9,000 to modify a vehicle to run on natural gas.

With CNG per gallon about half the cost of conventional gas and more than half the price of diesel per gallon, Collins said CNG-fueled vehicles is “a trend growing rapidly” across the world.

Initially, it was stated that MLGW had plans of building public CNG fueling stations at all of its service centers. Collins now says the number of facilities they will build depends on how the market develops.

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Memphis City Council Passes Water Meter Ordinance

After months of debate and amendments, the Memphis City Council finally passed an ordinance that would require individual water meters to be installed at all newly constructed condominiums.

MLGW Master Water Meter

  • MLGW Master Water Meter

On Tuesday, April 1st, the Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) Committee held its third and final reading of an ordinance proposed by Councilman Myron Lowery earlier this year that would require all condos or apartment complexes converted into condos to have individual water meters installed. The committee passed the ordinance, and it was subsequently heard by the full council. It was passed unanimously and will take effect July 1st.

The ordinance that passed is an amended version of Lowery’s original proposal, which requested that both all newly constructed condos and apartments have individual meters installed.

“We’re continuing to allow master water meters on apartments, but the minute an apartment complex is late paying their water bill, and I’m talking about one month late, it will automatically trigger action from Code Enforcement, and it will go in court,” Lowery said. “And the court has the right to appoint a receiver to collect rent [from tenants], so that the water bill will be paid. The goal is to ensure that everyone can stay in their home.”

Lowery was inspired to create the proposal after tenants of Garden Walk Condominiums in Raleigh were forced to evacuate their homes due to the homeowner’s association failing to pay the property’s $30,000 water bill. If the ordinance doesn’t eradicate the potential for similar occurrences in the future, Lowery said he’s going to re-propose the ordinance in its original form.

“This was really a compromise,” Lowery said. “If this process doesn’t work one time, I’m going back to the drawing board and asking for all newly constructed apartments as well as condominiums…Water is an essential service. Food, water, and shelter are what people need, and government is here to make sure that cities run properly. We’ve got to make sure that people have water.”

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MLGW Council Committee Pushes For Individual Water Meters At Condos

MLGW Master Water Meter

  • MLGW Master Water Meter

The city’s Memphis Light, Gas and Water Committee met with the MLGW board to discuss having individual water meters installed at newly-constructed condos and on conversions to condominiums today.

In January, City Councilman Myron Lowery proposed an ordinance that, if passed, would require all newly constructed condominiums to receive individual water meters. In the past, MLGW president Jerry Collins has said that the company was in support of Myron’s proposal. However, a decision wasn’t made regarding the proposed ordinance during the meeting Tuesday, March 18th. The matter is slated to be discussed during the next MLGW committee meeting on April 1st.

Another topic tackled during the meeting dealt with existing multi-family apartments and condominiums that have landlords neglecting to pay utility bills. Over recent years, this has had adverse impacts on tenants, and forced some to evacuate their homes. In 2013, tenants of Garden Walk Condominiums were required to exit their residences after a $30,000 water bill wasn’t fulfilled by its homeowner association.

To avoid similar occurrences in the future, the MLGW committee requested that if an apartment complex owner neglects to pay an existing MLGW water bill for two consecutive months, MLGW notifies Memphis Code Enforcement. Code Enforcement would then issue a citation and, if necessary, take the matter to court. This would be done to make sure MLGW is compensated for its distributed utilities and people would not be forced to leave their homes. A decision was not made on this proposal either and will also be revisited during the next committee meeting.