Executive Summary

Digitization holds a lot of promise for the future of water, but it also poses a challenge for administrators managing the flood of data coming out of our drinking and wastewater systems.

Spreadsheet overload, ‘too many apps’ and uneven digitization are a big problem, particularly for compliance managers tracking increasingly complicated regulations. Wrangling that data into a workable system is the most important step utilities can take to realize their 20-year digital strategies.

This report builds on interviews with dozens of employees at ten water utilities in the United States, Canada and Australia ranging in size from 20 to 1,000 employees. The utilities did not sponsor the report or pay for inclusion—they were selected because they represent compelling case studies for how software can drive utility management forward.

Showing how getting the ‘basics’ of data management right can unlock previously unrealized operational powers, we look at how organizations like DC Water are leveraging sound data practices to overcome administrative paralysis and build the utility of the future.

Finally, we survey the next 20 years of water utility management, which promises to be shaped by everything from wastewater surveillance, to PFAS, to biosolids, to direct potable reuse (DPR)—each of which will only make getting compliance data under control more important to securing the future of water.

Foreword

As someone at the forefront of moving the needle on the future of water, I’m so excited and encouraged by the perspective and findings surfaced in ‘Building the Utility of the Future.’

There’s an enormous opportunity in our industry for community building and developing a shared understanding of the challenges our sector will face over the next 20 years. I call it an ‘opportunity’ because communicating our goals to groups outside of the water industry—particularly the legislators responsible for funding and signing the future of water into law—is a missing link that is the critical catalyst for change.

We can talk about green infrastructure, business development, and public private partnerships, and bathe ourselves in greenwashing. But until we find ways to communicate our challenges and criteria for success in a way that’s compelling and easy for policymakers to understand, that momentum is not going to happen. Until we clearly articulate the insights powered by integrated data, our sector simply won’t be able to secure the funding and goodwill needed to deploy these technologies on a large scale.

Service providers like Klir are the lynchpin of the solution here, because technology is only one leg of the stool—managing the change of people & process in this new way of working is the prerequisite for success.

It’s not that we are short on data as an industry, rather short of the right access to the right data at the right time with the right volume and quality. Only then can we turn up the heat to articulately demand what is needed to fix the wicked challenges facing water and run a successful utility over the next 20 years.

As it stands now, our industry is fragmented, few of us have a clear and compelling vision for modernization beyond engineering schematics, and most leaders are focused on technical challenges with little appetite for salesmanship or storytelling. We need to be able to connect the dots, legislate certain outcomes, and commit to making decisions about our capital infrastructure for the fiscal year based on sound data.

Cementing these standards will be impossible without a shared understanding of what our utilities must look like in the future. ‘Building the Utility of the Future’ is a crucial step towards that goal, shedding light on the various data management tools and strategies that the world’s largest utilities are using to bring water into the 21st century.

Section 1: Why Compliance Is the Ideal Starting Point for Digital Transformation

Software and the internet have transformed the way we work. Even smaller rural water utilities that lack sophisticated IT systems now use digital tools to communicate, manage tasks and report sampling results to regulators.

There’s just one problem: while other sectors have forged ahead and embraced purpose-built solutions, water utilities have been slow to adopt. It can take decades before a proven technology is considered “mainstream” enough, forcing staff to come up with their own solutions and leading to uneven digitization.

Before Denver Water underwent an IT audit and consolidation six years ago, Chief Operations and Maintenance Officer Tom Roode says the utility had struggled with “too many” point software solutions popping up across the organization for decades.

“For example, Maximo: it got started in one area, say our trades shop, or one treatment plant. And then over a 20 year period people would adopt it at a different treatment plant, or in the pump stations, and it kind of organically grew.”

This “organic” approach to choosing work or asset management software can create problems, especially when the solution your trades shop picks (Maximo) is different from the one your IT department and fleet staff pick (Workfront).

For Compliance Managers who rely on data from virtually every other department to do their jobs, the resulting patchwork of tools is particularly frustrating to work with—worse, even, than the piles of paper that used to clutter their desks.

But there’s a silver lining to the fact that so much data is piling up in our compliance departments: it also makes them the perfect entry point for real, strategic digital transformation initiatives.

Fighting Administrative Paralysis

As new criteria and guidance are constantly revised around issues like PFAS and LSLs, compliance managers find themselves sifting through more data than ever before.

Lacking a dedicated system to manage all of the deadlines, tasks and data her staff were responsible for, one Compliance Manager we spoke with at a mid-sized California utility took matters into her own hands and built an elaborate Excel “cheat sheet”—a monumental task at an organization that had more than 300 construction projects on the go at the time.

Cheat sheets are a popular stopgap at water utilities today, but using a spreadsheet as a database is time consuming, creates a silo around the individual responsible for it, and can be outright dangerous if anything ever slips through the cracks.

“It’s so hard being just one person with all the knowledge,” the Compliance Manager said. “Every project is different because they have different needs. Each project was trying to do it on their own, [but] they didn’t know regulatory compliance. There were knowledge-sharing gaps between departments.”

Data Icebergs

While it’s popular to blame silos, the iceberg might offer an even better analogy for what’s going on at utilities today.

Some crucial data might be visible at the surface, but a vast majority of the most valuable information is below the water line, hidden from view and ready to cause problems.

Icebergs aren’t limited to large organizations either. General Manager Piret Harmon, who manages a team of about 20 people at the Scotts Valley Water District (SVWD), which serves 10,700 customers across 4,200 service connections, routinely finds herself frustrated by data icebergs.

“The water consumption data is here, the water billing data is here, the production data is here, and water quality data is here. And every week there’s another report due, and it’s up to me or another person to sit down again and sort through it all. It’s a very manual process.”

At a large utility responsible for thousands of different permits, that can leave Compliance Managers overloaded by paperwork and constantly firefighting. Any single data point might be buried in:

• Spreadsheets, created by individual personnel and saved locally on their computers
• Outdated printouts kept on file
• Emails saved in an individual’s inbox
• Handwritten log sheets kept onsite
• Customer information systems

“I just couldn’t put my arms all around it, especially at the beginning of the year when it gets busy with permit renewals,” said another Compliance Manager we spoke to.

“I’d have to let our lab managers know, ‘Hey, sorry, my bad. I usually give you two weeks’ notice that I need this data, but I need it tomorrow.’”

#1 Moving Towards Self-Service

Utility customers and workers alike already live in a world filled with internet-enabled self-serve platforms—to consume their media, communicate with colleagues, and order groceries.

As Piret Harmon from SVWD points out, utilities are under increasing pressure to build experiences that are as easy to use and intuitive as the ones we encounter when ordering toilet paper on our smartphones.

“We are trying to actually empower our customers to get more things done without us. For example, why do people have to call us so we can find a piece of paper for them? Why can’t it be like, ‘no, go and browse for it yourself?’”

‍#2 Bracing for the ‘Gray Tsunami’

Water utilities across North America face huge personnel crises as a generation of experienced workers prepare for retirement, with institutional knowledge walking out the door with them.

As workers prepare to retire, it’s more important than ever for utilities to document processes and institutional knowledge so new employees can train for the job properly.

“I’ve got people about to retire, and also recent college grads. I’ve somehow gotta get these people ready for very technical positions very quickly,” one Compliance Manager told us.

#3 Getting New Infrastructure Funded and Built

The less time a compliance department spends chasing down regulatory information, the more time they have to serve internal customers and help them usher large-scale projects through complicated regulatory processes.

“[I want to] be able to better serve our other customers, like Engineering. Having more time to support them as they navigate complicated, sometimes confusing regulations would make their jobs so much easier,” said one Compliance Manager.

“If we could free up some of our time, that would allow us to give them the consultation that they need to navigate new permits for new projects. We could be a better service and have more time to help them navigate all of those regulations.”

#4 Responding to Water Quality Issues Quickly and Building Trust

When customers’ water quality is threatened and regulatory bodies are demanding up-to-date information, time is of the essence.

“We’re just beginning to dive into the world of letting customers report with web mapping applications,” says Adam McKnight, a former analyst with Halifax Water.

In the event of a water main break, rather than solely relying on calls from customers, McKnight’s department has given residents the ability to file their own reports online. It’s faster and more efficient than before.

“They pin the dropper point on the map, and we can go out and we can investigate,” says McKnight. “That becomes a part of our water main break response. That’s one emergency situation where it’s really beneficial having all the data right there.”

#5 Bringing Utility Management Into the 21st Century

Overstretched Compliance Managers might have it the worst when it comes to administrative overload, but important data is pooling across every department.

A single large wastewater treatment plant (0.8-3 million population served) can generate upwards of 30,000 data points, most of which pile up in data graveyards: employee hard drives, OneDrive, the utility’s servers, etc.

When managers look out across their organizations today, they see the tops of numerous icebergs with no way of knowing what’s underneath.

To move forward with some of the more exciting innovations in water technology like AI and predictive analytics, large utilities will need to do the hard work of taming these icebergs with a sound data management strategy. And developing objective metrics for utility performance will be crucial as utilities approach state and federal governments for more funding.

Section 2: From Asset to Event Management: Turning Software Into an Essential Operations and Maintenance Tool

Operations and maintenance leaders at water utilities are faced with a seemingly impossible task: maintain massive, complex and at times century-old drinking, waste and stormwater infrastructure, often with limited resources and a shoestring budget.

In many cases infrastructure is breaking down faster than it’s being renewed, while economic and population growth puts further stress on existing systems, leading to frustrating situations for utility leaders.

As Piret Harmon from SVWD puts it, “Why are you building if you’re asking me to conserve? How is that even in the same sentence?”

With a problem so deeply rooted in physical infrastructure and engineering challenges, taming a utility’s data might not be the first solution that comes to the minds of utility leaders.

That is until you look at the way leading utilities like DC Water are managing their data—not just to cut down on administrative work, but to make the job of the operator easier, drive real change in their physical systems, and anticipate and fix asset risks before they become asset disasters.

The Typical Utility ‘Stack’

In addition to operating one of the world’s most advanced wastewater treatment plants at Blue Plains, DC Water has made significant strides in bringing all of their work into the digital sphere properly.

The utility has methodically built and adopted systems to help it decrease administrative workload, create processes that are more self-serve, and lay the groundwork for more sophisticated technologies like predictive analytics.

Like many similarly-sized utilities, DC Water sorts its systems into three general buckets:

1. Its Core Underlying Systems that manage assets and track internal work using IBM Maximo and ArcGIS, as well as payroll and finance which is handled by Oracle.
2. Its Customer Information Systems, through which it manages 130,000 metered connections.
3. Its Third Party Portal, nicknamed the ‘Plumber Portal,’ a collection of contractor-facing applications through which the utility manages programs like Backflow Inspections and Grease Abatement.

Getting as many contractors, employees and customers plugged into and using this system has been a big priority for DC Water’s IT lead Tom Kuczynski—and a big achievement.

While DC Water’s shiny, futuristic HQO headquarters has a mailroom, it might not need one for long: 70,000 of the utility’s customers have signed up for online accounts, and about 50,000 currently receive an e-bill.

Thanks to the ‘Report a Problem’ app, customers can submit issues online even if they don’t have an online account.

Dispatching plumbers for inspections is also now an entirely digital process handled through the Plumber Portal, which automatically generates and sends work orders to Maximo.

“It’s a lot more efficient for us to manage any information, and it integrates better with our core systems. So if you need a meter installed or a service connection completed, you can send us requests that automatically generate a work order in our system,” says Kuczynski.

At-A-Glance: Utilities Featured in the Report

The Disaster Response Challenge

DC Water’s IT systems faced a new challenge in September of 2021 when Northeastern DC experienced a “microburst”—an extreme climate-change fuelled weather event concentrated in one area.

“It didn’t rain at all here [in the south], but we had six inches of rain in northeast DC that caused major flooding in the area,” recalls Kuczynski.

The utility’s 24/7 helpline and ‘Report a Problem’ apps immediately lit up as numerous customers’ homes flooded during the microburst, and DC Water’s crews had to respond quickly.

Suddenly there were three groups of people sitting in three different locations who had to work closely together:

1. The pumping operations crew who sit in the pumping station right outside of HQO and run the sewer system.
2. The plant workers four and a half miles away at Blue Plains WWTP, where all of the water pumped through the system eventually ends up.
3. The customer service crews on the third floor of HQO who monitor the help line and dispatch crews.

Communication between the three groups became tricky when multiple work orders were generated for the same neighborhood or geographical area.

All three would have to rely on a fourth party, the foreman in that area, to know that those work orders were all related to the same problem and avoid sending multiple crews.

“We didn’t really have a comprehensive understanding of what was really happening across our physical collection system and our customer system: none of those systems talked to each other back before September. We needed a better way to manage that event in a more comprehensive way,” says Kuczynski.

Enter the Events Management System

Working with a local vendor, DC Water set out to build an application that would knit the information in its Core Systems and Customer Systems together into one seamless, real-time emergency response dashboard.

The result was the Events Management System, an award-winning dashboard-based application that gave operators sitting in the DC Water war room access to:

Real-time feeds that they can use to monitor the severity of an incident.

An incident tracking tool that integrated with the utility’s call center and customer information system.

Information about all crews and vehicles in the field, making it easier to allocate resources to an event quickly.

“This one pane of glass now gives you all of that information in a single view,” says Kuczynski. In the event of another microburst, crews could be dispatched and managed seamlessly using a single user interface.

“So they can say, ‘These five work orders and incidents can all go to one crew.’ And they circle and drag them (on screen) to create a work order. They can literally do what they did before in seconds compared to minutes.”

In an emergency situation where five new calls might come in by the time you’re done attending to one, that’s a game changer.

Proactive Utility Management in Action

DC Water’s experience with the EMS is a concrete example of how sound data management and connecting disparate data sets can unlock new levels of efficiency, responsiveness and insight at a water utility.

It shows how there’s a direct line between the less glamorous aspects of digital transformation—pushing customers to sign up for online accounts and building a reliable customer database, for example—and the more exciting, transformational technologies like the EMS.

Take Pipe Sleuth, another application DC Water built with an external vendor, which uses neural networks and advanced image processing to analyze photos of pipes to grade them based on condition and report potential pipeline defects.

Kuczynski says the ability to better predict main breaks could be a game changer for the utility, from both a service and a cost standpoint.

“You eliminate service interruptions to customers, you eliminate street closures, but you also reduce the cost of a repair—$50,000 for a small break vs. up to $1,500,000 to fix a 36- inch transmission main.”

Section 3: Using Better Data To Tackle The Resource Recovery Challenge

Getting rid of data icebergs and leveraging compliance and operational data for insights will be crucial for bringing utilities into the digital age properly. But how does better data management fit into the broader transformation that’s going on at water utilities today?

Let’s stick with the DC Water example a bit longer. Their push to squeeze every last bit of value out of every asset there hasn’t stopped with faster emergency response times.

Blue Drop, a nonprofit LLC spun out of DC Water in 2016 and lead by Kuczynski, has recently started generating revenue by renting out the utility’s headquarters for events, leasing surplus cell tower space, licensing its EMS and PipeSleuth software to other utilities, and selling a Class A biosolids fertilizer product called Bloom.

“You can’t keep raising prices, right? There gets to be a point in time where the cost of service exceeds the ability of the customers to pay. So you’ve got to figure out ways to do it better, faster, cheaper,” says Kuczinski.

It’s an unavoidable fact that most utilities are going to have to start looking for additional cost savings and sources of revenue to offset rate increases. For most, that means aggressively pursuing resource recovery: the process of extracting and recycling as much of what passes through a wastewater system as possible.

Better Biosolids With Better Data

Disposing waste sludge is an expensive process, and getting better at biosolids—by reducing the amount of biosolids that are thrown out and increasing the amount of Class A material that can be sold—is a huge cost-saving and revenue opportunity for utilities.

According to Urban Utilities General Manager of Resource Recovery Peter Donaghy, mapping out our water and wastewater systems and developing a better understanding of how they work using better data is one of the most effective methods we have to improve the biosolids process.

His team recently used real-time analytics to discover that the way effluent moves through the system’s pumping stations could affect biosolids quality. As they worked through the biosolids system with a fine-toothed comb, they realized sewer network operators could have a massive role in biosolids quality.

“As soon as we saw [a contaminant] coming in at the head of a treatment plant, there were a certain number of pump stations we could inhibit that could slow that process and give us time to react.”

By allowing the pumping station to slowly fill up, Donaghy’s team could buy themselves an hour or two to send a worker to that pump station to test it for undesirable effluent and potentially stave off contamination.

“Inhibiting a pump station is not something you’d think is part of managing biosolids, it’s way off in the network. Some of the guys managing those pump stations wouldn’t even know what biosolids are.”

Direct Potable Reuse: The ‘Holy Grail’ of Resource Recovery

While generating additional revenue from a utility’s assets and recycling biosolids waste is a step in the right direction, recycled water continues to loom on the horizon as the biggest resource recovery prize.

Less than a fraction of a percent of all of our wastewater is ‘officially’ recycled back into the drinking water system today. But cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Washington D.C. already draw their drinking water downstream from wastewater treatment plants.

In fact, of the 32 billion gallons of wastewater discharge the U.S. produces every day, the National Research Council estimates that up to 20 billion might already be re-entering drinking sources downstream.

And as utilities in Colorado, Florida and California take concrete steps towards implementing direct potable reuse (DPR) technologies and new research suggests that treated water might be cleaner than conventional sources, recycled drinking water will play an increasingly large role in the future of water.

Take Los Angeles Sanitation’s ‘Hyperion 2035’ plan, which aims to transform its Hyperion Wastewater Treatment Plant—one of the largest in North America—into a fully DPR operation by 2035.

Hyperion is a colossal 144-acre facility, with a sprawling network of streets that officials often describe as a city unto itself. To move to DPR, close to half of the existing footprint of the plant will need to be rebuilt or overhauled in some way with a raft of technologies like microfiltration and ultrafiltration, new biological processes and reverse osmosis.

But to hear LA Sanitation officials describe it, Hyperion 2035 is just as much about new treatment technologies and engineering challenges as it is about building (and in some cases, rebuilding) trust in recycled drinking water.

DPR’s Compliance Challenge

As utilities pursue DPR, the legacy of anti-potable reuse sentiment and California’s doomed efforts to start introducing DPR in the 1990s looms large in the minds of utility leaders and regulators.

It’s clear that the margin for error with DPR will be razor-thin, and building confidence in water quality and compliance data will be more important for DPR projects than it ever was for traditional water and wastewater utilities.

“The whole issue of public confidence is that very, very fragile link that keeps the system going. That’s something we are very aware of and try very hard to maintain,” says Pierre van Rensburg, strategic executive for urban and transport planning at Windhoek, Namibia.

That city built the world’s first DPR plant in 1968, which today produces purified water for the city’s 400,000 residents. Van Rensburg says that no illness has ever been directly linked to its operations in the decades since its opening.

“I think if there is ever one incident that could be linked back to the plant, the public would lose all confidence and simply refuse to use water from that source and that would severely taint our supply options.”

Conclusion

The Future of Water is Compliance

So what does this all mean for utilities? Firstly, it confirms something we’ve suspected for a long time at Klir: that many water utilities are struggling with digitization ‘basics,’ and they won’t be able to move forward with their ambitious 20 year strategies before they get them right.

As EPA and states make big strides to tackle issues like PFAS, LSLs, drought and increasing pressure on water systems, keeping up with regulations is only going to become a more burdensome process using existing tools.

At the same time, as utilities pursue efficiencies and more ambitious resource recovery projects while recycling or reclaiming more of their water, trust in the integrity of their data is only going to become more important, not less.

So how can utilities decrease the margin of error and build trust in their data? It all comes back to those ‘basics:’ building a single source of truth for regulatory data, breaking down icebergs and building certainty around a utility’s compliance data.

Wrangling water quality and permit data into a workable system and empowering Compliance Managers with better software tools might seem like a purely administrative challenge today. But it could very well turn out to be the single most important step utilities take in their digital transformation journey.

"One of the difficulties with diving into the digital world is that you end up having an app for this, and then an app for that. The fact that Klir had so many different modules that can talk and communicate with each other was really appealing to us. Users don't have to learn eight different applications: ideally they're only going to know the SCADA system and Klir."

– Adam McKnight, Data Analyst at Halifax Regional Water Commission

‍As Data Analyst for the Halifax Regional Water Commission's Water Quality Programs, Adam McKnight has a privileged vantage point over Nova Scotia's largest water system.

Serving a population of more than 350,000 in the Halifax Regional Municipality, the utility manages 8 water supply plants, 14 wastewater treatment facilities and more than 1,500 kilometers of water mains in Canada’s second-fastest growing municipality, all of which must be constantly monitored for compliance through a rigorous sampling program." A lot of the time, compliance data drives our operational decision making. If we're reporting a number to a regulator, we need to make sure that we're doing what we need to do operationally to meet those targets," points out McKnight.

But getting those thousands of data points in front of the right people can be a challenge, especially when you consider the patchwork of offline and online systems that water workers like McKnight have to navigate. That’s why Halifax Water set out to transform the way it manages its water data, merging multiple data sources and processes into a single collaborative platform and paving the way for a more proactive, collaborative and resilient water data management program.

More Data, More Challenges

When Halifax Water first considered implementing Klir to manage its compliance data in 2020, it had already spent decades using software tools to transition away from paper and binder-based recordkeeping and do more with their existing data. But while compliance-specific web tools had helped Halifax Water take one step into a digital future, as the utility grew and the number of different people and departments using those tools increased, the utility’s data management system became increasingly strained. "We focused on getting drinking water data into the digital realm, then we expanded on that and incorporated wastewater compliance and sampling, then we added more research-based groups." The result was a work process that, from a data and reporting perspective, was unsustainable in a few ways:

• Sampling data remained difficult to access, living "either in physical log sheets at the treatment facilities, digital spreadsheets, or in the time series data management system that stores our SCADA data. Having data in so many locations and formats makes it really difficult to pull the data together for comparison and analysis, especially when it is needed quickly."
• Spreadsheets were being used as databases, creating data opacity and discouraging proactive data management.
• Even when users could get data in and out of the system, it wasn’t built for collaboration and often became disorganized with too many hands in the pot.

"We didn't really have a solid water quality data governance or structure. It was kind of a free for all, which led to a lot of challenges,” says McKnight.

Implementing a New Approach to Water Data Management

It became clear that Halifax Water would need to adopt a new approach to water quality data management—one that took the patchwork of tools it had depended on in the past and turned it into one truly integrated system. To do that, the utility turned to Klir, an operating system (OS) for water management that integrates compliance, sampling and all other aspects of water and wastewater data management into one integrated, centralized and easy to use system.

Presented with the opportunity to switch to Klir, McKnight says it didn’t make sense not to make the jump. “We have all of this operational data, we have all of this compliance data—it didn't make sense not to have that data be brought together. ”With the help of Klir and a renewed commitment to the One Utility, One Platform approach, Halifax Water aims to:

1. Maintain High Quality Drinking Water

Klir dovetailed with a longstanding desire at Halifax Water to do more with data and move from reactive problem solving to an approach whereby compliance personnel, operators and engineers worked proactively to mitigate drinking water and wastewater issues. "Over the last three years we’ve been trying to look at our compliance data as early as possible, especially when data is beginning to trend differently. We began by getting our compliance inspectors to send us emails when they're noticing things in the distribution systems or at treatment facilities when data is outside normal thresholds."

Klir presented McKnight’s department with the opportunity to see the bigger compliance picture, notice trends before they become problems, and make sure the right people have access to the right data at the right time. "That way, we're able to get ahead of things and maintain high quality drinking water."

2. Decrease Dependence on Individuals

The complicated routines of a water sampling program as large as Halifax Water’s will often live, to some extent, inside the desk drawer or head of a single employee. That can create problems if that information—or person—ever goes missing.

"That's a lot to put on one person,” points out McKnight. “And if that one person leaves, you're stuck."

Klir gave Halifax the ability to offload that information into a universally-accessible system, decreasing dependence on individuals and building a system that was more resilient, more secure and less prone to information loss.

3. Centralize Compliance Data and Cut Down on Data Chasing

Larger utilities like Halifax Water often struggle to maintain a single set of compliance data, which can sometimes lead to confusion or even overlapping, contradictory information about water and wastewater quality.

"Sometimes data used in reporting is calculated from a combination of compliance and operational sampling program data. However, confusion can result when datasets unintentionally referenced are not the authoritative source of the information and have become outdated. We need one single source of truth, where people know they can go to reference authoritative data at any time.”

Linking and centralizing compliance, monitoring, research, operational and other data together to create a single source of truth provides Halifax Water’s users with a new level of decision-making confidence, allowing operators and staff preparing reports to have a full and clear picture of what is actually going on in the utility.

4. Use Fewer Apps to Build a More Efficient, Secure System

It’s not uncommon today for operators, engineers and compliance professionals at large utilities to use separate tools for compliance reporting, sampling, pretreatment and FOG, backflow prevention & cross-connection control.McKnight says that can become a frustrating challenge for a utility trying to build a system that works, and is also precisely why Halifax Water chose Klir.

“The fact that Klir had so many different modules that can talk and communicate with each other was really appealing to us. Users don't have to learn eight different applications: ideally they're only going to know the SCADA system and Klir."

McKnight says that in addition to reducing the time Halifax Water spends training new users, it also allows the utility to avoid situations where someone leaves the company and takes access to and familiarity with an app with them.

“From an auditing perspective that can be a huge red flag. If you're only using a handful of applications, that's a lot easier from a security perspective."

5. Break Down Departmental Silos and Promote Collaboration

Halifax Water made a multi-year commitment to become a “One Water” operation, integrating stormwater, wastewater and drinking water into one seamless system.

“Our big objective is to break down silos and have more communication between the different business units, departments and divisions. Alongside that, internally we've also [adopted] the slogan of ‘one water, one data.’ Those two goals really go hand in hand.”

Klir has helped accelerate that transformation within Halifax Water, helping form bridges between different groups within the utility, giving all user groups easy access to water quality data, and helping decision makers at the utility get on the same page when it comes time to problem-solve.

“It only helps make us stronger, because we're going to be working together and everyone has a common goal rather than feeling like there's different groups that are working against each other."

One Water, One Data

With Klir, Halifax Water foresees making serious progress on its goals to encourage interdepartmental collaboration as a One Water utility, set the stage for further data integration in the near future, as well as:

• Adopting a proactive approach to problem solving, helping it maintain water of high quality for its customers and the environment.
• Decrease dependence on individuals, reducing the risk of information loss.
• Create a single source of truth, avoiding overlapping or contradictory reporting and streamlining the compliance process as a whole. 
• Use fewer apps to build a system that is easier to use, takes less training time to master, and is better prepared from an audit and security perspective.
• Break down departmental silos and promote collaboration, allowing the utility to deliver on its One Water, One Data vision.

Bring a 'One Water' Approach to Your Utility

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of wastewater management—including compliance, sampling and more—into an easy to use dashboard. Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and record-keeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

“I don’t think there is anything out there like Klir.”

‍—Keith Abercrombie, Chief Operating Officer at Santa Clarita Valley Water

At A Glance

• As SCV Water amalgamated three water divisions under one agency, Klir supported a seamless operational transition by organizing over 150 permits into a single collaborative dashboard.
• Complete visibility for management into live status of all permits has eliminated all risk associated with specific employees holding permitting information.
• With permitting tasks fully managed through Klir, no deadlines are missed.

The Challenge​

In 2018, Santa Clarita Valley Water (SCV Water) was managing a massive organizational shift—amalgamating three separate water divisions into one.Among the many hurdles that Chief Operating Officer Keith Abercrombie and his team were facing: the complex task of understanding which permits were being maintained across the three divisions.With an aging workforce (80% of which is over 50) and a few key team members set to retire in the coming years, Keith and his team were driven to look for a new way to handle their permits.In the old system, everyone knew who was responsible for managing a specific permit, but a change in the overall structure meant a change in responsibilities for many employees.Each permit had requirements to fulfill for a key regulatory body, and not reporting or complying would mean that the utility could be subject to a fine or penalty—which in many cases could be quite material.Without the support of a central permitting database, and with the recent increase in permit quantity and complexity, there was simply too much risk.

The Solution

Keith and the team at SCV Water turned to Klir to pull together and help coordinate permitting information for the newly-amalgamated team.

The Klir permit management solution takes the risk of managing and complying with permits out of the individual’s hands by centralizing this information andautomating the tasks and activities needed to comply across the organization.“Klir has helped us manage and track permits and to be in a position that we are comfortable in knowing exactly what we are doing with our permits. We are not at the risk of screw ups, which can be embarrassing and costly,” says Keith.With permits across the organization now managed in Klir:

• Contributors can easily keep track of deadlines and activities with automatic triggers and alerts
• All data and requirements for 150+ permits are gathered into one permit management system
• Employees can continue to work the exact same way as before because the Klir system builds onto existing systems and processes

“Some staff, like supervisors, worry that they could miss a deadline. Having the ability for software to tee up the events in advance, and not just for the person whose responsibility it is, but for someone else in case they are out, gives us peace of mind,” says Abercrombie.

The Impact

With a single source of truth for all permits, SCV Water has:

• Eliminated the risk of having a specific employee handle all permitting information. Now, permit management will remain consistent when people retire or new people join the team.
• Automated all permit-related tasks with task scheduling and notifications sent to key employees.
• Prioritized workflows thanks to easy visibility into work on-hand, so that no deadlines are missed.

“It is a lot more than automation, it is a central database and I now know where to go to find the data I need," says Abercrombie.

How Klir can help

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of wastewater management—including compliance, sampling and more—into an easy to use dashboard.Learn moreabout how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

Serving Southern Nevada and the world famous Las Vegas strip, the Southern Nevada Water Authority provides potable water to 2.3 million residents and 40 million annual tourists.

With a mandate to be the world’s most efficient drinking water utility, the SNWA relies on Klir to be more proactive and efficient when it comes to permit and Safe Drinking Water Act compliance.

“Being in compliance is extremely important. But being able to demonstrate that in an effective and efficient way is where this tool really takes our compliance perspective to the next level,” says Dave Johnson, Deputy General Manager of Operations at the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Las Vegas Valley Water District. “The Klir application helps us to sleep better at night knowing that we can demonstrate that compliance.”

The Challenge

As a public utility, the SNWA has no room for error when it comes to permit compliance and utility operations.

With thousands of permits spread across the organization in different departments and different divisions, and 300,000 samples required annually to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the SNWA set out to identify a technology that would allow it to bring all of its permit tracking and sampling monitoring together into one location.

“We have a big responsibility to the community, and that is to ensure a safe and secure drinking water system. Klir provides us a tool to make sure that our water is safe and secure,” says Frank Milligan, Director, Environmental Health & Safety & Corporate Security at the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

The Solution

• Klir provides peace of mind for management with complete visibility into the utility’s live status of compliance.
• Centralizing 1000+ regulatory permits into a single dashboard eliminates information silos.
• SNWA analyzes over 300,000 water quality samples every year. Klir provides a tool to track and manage that sampling data, allowing the SNWA to ensure its in compliance and meeting ratepayers’ expectations each day.
• With time saved on compliance admin, staff time can be redirected towards high-value proactive work.

The Impact

The Klir drinking water management platform allows SNWA to consolidate and manage all of its 1000+ permits and 300,000+ water samples in one place.

• With a single software system to consolidate all of its permits and Safe Drinking Water Act sampling outcomes, the SNWA can deliver compliance more efficiently.
• Management has complete visibility into the organization’s real-time compliance position, all within a single dashboard.
• Permits are kept current and legal with no deadlines missed.
• Staff time that would otherwise be spent on administrative tasks can be redirected to high value work such as conducting inspections, or hazard abatement action.

“The real value proposition in the Klir software is that it allows us to become much more efficient in how we deal with these massive amounts of data.”

– Dave Johnson, Deputy General Manager of Operations at SNWA and LVVWD

How Klir Can Help

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of water management—including compliance, sampling, permitting and more—into an easy to use dashboard.

Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and record-keeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide system-wide visibility into your water system.

“If we needed to find something, we had to dig through thousands of pages—and if it wasn’t where it was supposed to be, we were in trouble.”
– A.J. Hopkins

After an audit flagged missing documentation, Macon turned to Klir for a centralized, digital solution.

From Paper Overload to a Digital-First Approach

For years, Macon’s compliance program relied on manual processes, making it difficult to access key documents and stay ahead of deadlines. In 2022, an audit from Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division (EPD) highlighted the risks of missing documentation. The message was clear—without a better system, they faced potential fines, which could have cost the same as a year with Klir, and compliance failures.

Macon chose Klir for its ability to centralize all compliance data, eliminate manual tracking, and provide real-time visibility into reports and deadlines. The platform offered unlimited user access, strong security protections, and the flexibility to scale beyond industrial pretreatment into drinking water and wastewater.

A Smooth Transition to Klir

Moving from binders to a digital system can seem overwhelming, but Macon’s onboarding process with Klir was structured, hands-on, and highly supported. Over six months, the Klir team worked closely with A.J. and his staff to digitize records, standardize workflows, and configure the platform to their needs.

“It felt like Klir was auditing our program from top to bottom—which turned out to be a huge benefit. We finally had clarity on everything we had and what was missing.”
‍– A.J. Hopkins

Despite staffing changes and unexpected extreme weather delays, the transition remained steady and manageable, giving Macon full control over the pace of implementation.

Results: More Confidence, Less Chaos

Since implementing Klir, Macon has eliminated the stress of tracking compliance manually.

Records are now searchable in seconds, removing the last-minute panic of audits. Automatic reminders ensure that deadlines are never missed. Compliance confidence, which was once shaky, jumped from a 5 out of 10 to a 9 or 10 out of 10.

“We used to lose sleep over whether we had the right information. Now, we know we’re covered.”
– A.J. Hopkins

Looking ahead, Macon is eager to take advantage of Boots, Klir’s AI-powered assistant, which will allow them to find answers instantly—without searching through spreadsheets or emails.

“If someone asks me for a report, I won’t have to dig through a binder or open 15 spreadsheets—I’ll just ask Boots.”
– A.J. Hopkins

Final Takeaway

For utilities still buried in paper, struggling with spreadsheets, and worried about missing critical information, digital transformation is no longer optional.

“If you’re tired of chasing paperwork, if managing records feels stressful and chaotic, if you’re worried about missing something—it’s time to go digital. Klir has completely changed how we work.”
– A.J. Hopkins

Want to hear the full conversation? Watch the webinar recording to see how Macon Water Authority built a more efficient, reliable program with Klir.

Contact us at hello@klir.com to learn how your utility can move from paper to precision.

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With growing regulatory demands, aging infrastructure, and staff turnover, permitting has become one of the most complex (and risky) responsibilities in water management. For Lisa Haney (Orange County Water District) and Greg Buncab (Contra Costa Water District), the solution wasn’t more spreadsheets, it was clarity, structure, and a single source of truth.

“Before Klir, I was surrounded by Post-it notes, Word docs, Excel tabs—and I was the only one who knew where anything was.”
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– Greg Buncab, Environmental Compliance Officer, CCWD

From Manual Chaos to Structured Collaboration

Like many utilities, both OCWD and CCWD were dealing with permitting programs spread across systems - and people’s memories. Lisa had 600+ easement permits tracked in one massive Excel sheet. Greg inherited an entire compliance program with no documentation from his predecessor. Information lived in inboxes, desktops, and (more often than not) sticky notes.

Klir offered a new path:

• A centralized hub for permits, programs, and tasks
• Cross-department collaboration with clear visibility
• Automatic reminders, audit trails, and historic context
• A foundation for future AI adoption

“I probably had 20 people a day asking me where something was. That was my whole day. Now they just find it themselves."

‍– Lisa Haney, Executive Director of Planning & Natural Resources, OCWD

Beyond Permitting – A Place for Organizational Memory

Both agencies quickly saw that what started with permitting could extend further. Greg expanded Klir to track pressure vessels, land use agreements, and safety checklists. Lisa’s team added hydrology, easements, and even institutional knowledge - so future staff wouldn’t have to rebuild from scratch after retirements.

“We’re using Klir to train new employees. What used to take a year now takes a few weeks."

‍– Lisa Haney, Executive Director of Planning & Natural Resources, OCWD

Results: Transparency, Teamwork, and Peace of Mind

With Klir in place, deadlines are met, documents are easy to find, and cross-team coordination is far simpler. Lisa can reallocate tasks for better workload balance. Greg can sleep without wondering what he forgot.

“Now when someone asks why we do something, I don’t have to explain - I can show them the regulator’s email."

‍– Greg Buncab, Environmental Compliance Officer, CCWD

Looking Ahead

Both agencies are now exploring how Klir can support digital transformation, from AI-driven insights to reporting automation.

“We want centralized data so we can move into AI. You can’t build intelligence without structure - and Klir gives us that foundation."

‍– Lisa Haney, Executive Director of Planning & Natural Resources, OCWD

Final Takeaway

If you’re still managing permits in spreadsheets or worried about losing institutional knowledge, now’s the time to rethink your approach.

“Anything with a due date, a risk, or a program behind it - put it in Klir. It’s been a game-changer."

‍– Greg Buncab

Want to hear the full conversation? Watch the recording to see how OCWD and CCWD are building smarter, more resilient operations with Klir.

Industrial pretreatment programs are under pressure. More industries, tighter regulations, and fewer staff hours mean the risk of missed samples, violations, or incomplete records is higher than ever. For Joshua Earley, Industrial Pretreatment Specialist at North Charleston Sewer District, the old way of managing pretreatment just wasn’t cutting it.

‍“The former software was basically just a place to plug in numbers. It didn’t really tell us anything — no trends, no red flags, nothing to help us act before problems escalated.”
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– Joshua Earley, NCSD

From Reactive to Proactive

Before Klir, Joshua’s team spent hours re-checking data to ensure nothing slipped through. Today, Klir flags violations, highlights repeated results, and even alerts him in real time when something’s off.

“What used to take me three hours — entering 44 sets of data — now takes 45 minutes in Klir. It’s a huge time saver and far less stress.”

‍– Joshua Earley

As part of implementation, Klir migrated 50–60 customer profiles and historical data, so Joshua’s team started with a clean, complete foundation. With monitoring, inspections, permits, and communications centralized in one secure platform, he can spend less time wrestling with spreadsheets and more time in the field working with industries to improve treatment processes.

‍ROI That Speaks Volumes‍

With Klir, the benefits go far beyond time savings. An ROI study with North Charleston showed a 13X return: for every $1 invested, the utility gained $13 back through faster processes, avoided violations, and reduced risk.

Early ROI analysis also found that the district recaptured 10% of staff time previously lost to manual mayhem — time that can now be reinvested in higher-value work.

“Saving time gives me more time to go out in the field, interact with industries, and help them improve their treatment. It helps the whole system get to where we need to be.”

– Joshua Earley

Audit-Ready, Without the Stress

Audits used to be a source of anxiety, with staff spending weeks double-checking spreadsheets and piecing together records. With Klir, everything is already in order — violations flagged, tasks tracked, communications logged. When inspectors arrive, Joshua’s team can show their program is under control in just a few clicks.

“If we miss a violation, the blame falls on us. Klir makes sure nothing slips through the cracks.”

– Joshua Earley

‍A Faster Path to Operational Data

For North Charleston, onboarding took about four to five months, but Joshua emphasized how closely Klir worked with him to migrate data and get the system running smoothly. Since then, Klir has streamlined the process even further, meaning today’s utilities can be up and running much faster.

Why It Matters for Pretreatment Programs Everywhere

For North Charleston, Klir turned pretreatment from a source of stress into a program that runs smoothly, saves time, and stays audit-ready. The same transformation is possible for any utility: fewer spreadsheets, fewer risks, and more confidence in front of regulators.

Joshua’s story is proof: less time in spreadsheets means more certainty, more visibility, and more impact.

Ready to see what digital pretreatment looks like?

👉 Watch the webinar on demand or book a demo to explore how Klir can modernize your program.

The Cost of Sticking with Legacy Systems

The City of Tyler operates a small pretreatment program with a lean team responsible for protecting local water quality and ensuring compliance with industrial users. Like many utilities, the team had been using Linko, a long-standing software for inspection scheduling, sampling, and reporting.

But over time, Linko became more of a hindrance than a help. Data access was limited. Workflows were unintuitive. Connectivity issues slowed down routine tasks. And most importantly, the system couldn’t support upcoming electronic submission requirements from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

“We needed to prepare to submit electronically for the TCEQ, and Linko would not have done anything for that.”
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— Sarah Elkins, Pretreatment Coordinator, City of Tyler

The team needed more than a software patch - they needed a system that could grow with them.

Preparing for the Future: Why Klir

The City of Tyler selected Klir to replace Linko. Klir’s operational data management hub would modernize its pretreatment program and give staff the ability to manage the entire program in one place. The decision was guided by a few key priorities:

• Centralize Pretreatment Data: Eliminate scattered spreadsheets and limited-access folders
• Improve Visibility Across the Team: Make it easy for staff to log in, find information, and act on it
• Streamline Workflows: Simplify inspections, sampling, task management, and reporting
• Enable Electronic Submissions: Prepare for TCEQ’s requirements without needing additional systems.

From Migration to Adoption

Transitioning off Linko was a critical moment for the team at City of Tyler, but it didn’t have to be a painful one. 

The process began with a clean export of data from Linko. From there, Klir’s onboarding and implimentation team worked with Sarah and her team to map, validate, and upload the data into Klir. Unlike other transitions, this one didn’t require costly consultants or downtime.

Once in Klir, the program was restructured to fit how Tyler actually works - aligning workflows to TCEQ requirements and internal processes. As Elkins noted, the difference was clear immediately:

“Now we’re able to just log on and see what we need, versus not having access for the broader team and limited data visibility with the previous tool.”

Making Pretreatment Easier and More Effective

In the months following the transition, the City of Tyler began to see measurable results, not just in terms of time saved, but in overall program effectiveness.

Operational Efficiency

• 20% time savings compared to previous workflows in Linko
• Staff now spend less time navigating systems and more time taking action

Transparency & Accountability

• All team members have access to real-time pretreatment data
• Managers can easily check task progress and ensure follow-through

Performance & Compliance

• 100% of inspections completed on time
• 100% of monitoring requirements met with results imported monthly
• SNC reports generated directly from Klir, without needing external support

Peace of Mind

• Reduced risk of missed deadlines or lost data
• Confidence that the system supports both routine work and regulatory shifts

Build a Modern Pretreatment Program

For small teams managing high-stakes programs, the right operational data hub can make all the difference. Klir helped the City of Tyler move away from legacy frustrations and toward a modern, unified way of working, improving day-to-day operations and preparing for long-term change.

Whether you’re trying to simplify reporting, prepare for digital submissions, or just gain better visibility into your data, the City of Tyler’s story shows that transitioning off Linko is not only possible - it’s worth it.

At Klir, we’re always improving! Since onboarding the City of Tyler, Klir has implemented a new way of getting data into Klir from Linko, that takes less than one day. 

How to Read, Manage, and Automate DMRs: A Practical Guide to NPDES Compliance

Key Takeaways

• Reporting failures, not exceedances, drive most NPDES non-compliance. More than half of all NPDES permit violations are reporting-related — most commonly a missed or incomplete Discharge Monitoring Report, not a permit exceedance.
• Electronic reporting is no longer optional. EPA’s NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule is now fully in effect nationwide — Phase 2 compliance became mandatory as of December 21, 2025 — meaning every permittee should now be submitting DMRs through NetDMR or an approved state eDMR system.
• Most DMR errors trace back to four root causes: permit misinterpretation, state-specific rule confusion, data mismanagement, and calculation mistakes — not a lack of effort from compliance staff.
• Reading a permit is a skill, not a formality. Utilities that treat their NPDES permit as a living reference document — not a file to check once — catch problems before they become violations.
• Automation doesn’t replace compliance staff — it protects them. Digital DMR management reduces manual data entry, catches calculation errors before submission, and gives utilities an audit trail regulators and executives can both trust.

Every wastewater utility with an NPDES permit knows the deadline. It arrives every month, quarter, or year without exception: the Discharge Monitoring Report is due.

For many compliance managers, pretreatment coordinators, and lab directors, the DMR isn’t just paperwork. It’s the single most visible record of how well a utility is operating — reviewed by regulators, published in EPA’s public ECHO database, and, increasingly, scrutinized by the utility’s own leadership.

Yet DMRs remain one of the most common sources of NPDES non-compliance in the country. Not because utilities are discharging out of permit — but because reporting itself breaks down somewhere between the sample bottle and the submission button.

This guide covers what every utility needs to know to read, manage, submit, and increasingly, automate DMRs — and how to build a reporting process that holds up under regulatory scrutiny.

Why DMRs Matter More Than Utilities Often Realize

A Discharge Monitoring Report is the self-reporting mechanism required under most NPDES permits. Utilities that are issued permits requiring sampling and monitoring must submit DMRs on a set schedule — monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, depending on the permit.

Once submitted, that data doesn’t stay internal. DMRs flow into EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO) database, where they’re publicly searchable by anyone — regulators, watchdog groups, and the utility’s own ratepayers.

That visibility is exactly why DMR accuracy matters as much as effluent quality itself. A utility can be operating a well-run treatment plant and still land in significant non-compliance status because of how — or whether — it reported that performance.

DMRs and NPDES Non-Compliance: The Numbers Tell the Story

More than half of all NPDES permit violations are reporting-related, and the majority of those involve a DMR that was never submitted, submitted late, or submitted incomplete.

That distinction matters. Regulators don’t just track effluent exceedances — they track whether utilities reported at all, and on time. EPA’s Noncompliance Report (NNCR) specifically flags DMR reporting violations when results aren’t reported within 30 days of the due date, splitting them into two categories:

• Category I violations — an entire DMR is missing 31+ days after the due date
• Category II violations — a partial DMR (missing parameters or outfalls) is still outstanding 31+ days after the due date

In other words, a utility doesn’t need to violate a discharge limit to land in significant non-compliance. It just needs to miss the reporting window. For a broader look at what full compliance actually requires beyond the DMR itself, see our guide, On the Path to Full NPDES Compliance.

The Reporting Landscape Has Changed: Electronic Submission Is Now Mandatory

Since December 2016, EPA’s NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule has required most permittees to submit DMRs electronically rather than on paper — through NetDMR or a state-run eDMR system.

What’s changed more recently: the rule’s second phase, which covers additional report types (biosolids reports, MS4 program reports, pretreatment reports, and more), had its compliance deadline extended to December 21, 2025. That extension has now passed, which means the full scope of NPDES electronic reporting is officially in effect nationwide.

For utilities still managing any part of their compliance reporting on paper, spreadsheets exported manually, or state portals used inconsistently, this is the moment to close that gap. States vary in which system they use — some rely on EPA’s NetDMR, others operate their own eDMR platforms — so the first step for any utility is confirming exactly which system its permitting authority requires. 

For utility IT teams weighing what this shift means for internal systems, see How Should IT Departments Adapt to EPA eReporting?

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How to Read Your NPDES Permit (Before You Touch a DMR)

The most common DMR errors don’t start with the report. They start with the permit.

Every NPDES permit is a distinct legal document, and treating it as a formality — reviewed once at issuance and never revisited — is one of the fastest ways to introduce compliance risk.

To read a permit correctly, utilities should:

• Confirm they’re working from the current version. Permits get reissued, modified, and administratively extended. A team working from an outdated copy can miss new limits or monitoring requirements entirely.
• Separate load limits from concentration limits. The Effluent Limitations section typically includes both, and they don’t automatically align — converting between the two requires care, and mismatched conversions are a frequent source of reporting errors.
• Look beyond the effluent limits table. Many permits include additional obligations buried in other sections — biosolids monitoring, biomonitoring/whole effluent toxicity testing, pretreatment program reporting — that don’t show up unless someone reads the full document.
• Flag anything ambiguous with the permitting authority directly. When permit language is unclear, a quick clarifying call is far cheaper than a compliance violation traced back to a misread requirement months later.

Submitting a DMR: What’s Actually Required

A completed electronic DMR includes more than sample results. At minimum, utilities need to report:

• Permittee name and mailing address, plus facility address if different
• The nine-character NPDES permit number
• The four-character discharge/outfall number
• The monitoring period, in Year/Month/Day format
• Parameters listed with STORET codes, in numeric order
• Maximum, minimum, and average sample measurements
• Number of exceedances
• Analysis frequency (e.g., “01/07” for weekly sampling)
• Sample type (GRAB, 24HC, CONT, etc.)
• Principal Executive Officer or Authorized Agent name and title
• An original authorized signature, with telephone number and signature date

Missing or mismatched data in any of these fields is enough to trigger a Category II reporting violation — even when the underlying water quality data is accurate.

Avoiding the Most Common DMR Errors

Beyond permit misreading, three other error categories account for the bulk of preventable DMR mistakes.

1. State-Specific Rules That Don’t Match Federal Defaults

NPDES is a federal program, but much of its day-to-day interpretation happens at the state level — and states don’t always align.

• Weekly averaging periods differ. Some states define the reporting week as Sunday through Saturday; others use Monday through Sunday. Using the wrong window changes the calculated average.
• Non-detect results are recorded differently. Some states want a “<” symbol with the detection limit; others require a zero; some mandate a specific NODI (No Data Indicator) code.
• Practical Quantification Limits (PQLs) vary by permit. Permits may specify the minimum concentration a lab must be able to measure — using a different method than the one specified can create an unintended violation, even if the discharge itself is compliant.
• Additional monitoring still needs to be reported. If a lab runs extra parameters beyond what’s required, that data typically still needs to appear on the DMR, often with a comment noting why.
• Rounding rules are more precise than most people assume. Under standard rounding conventions, values ending in 6, 7, 8, or 9 round up, and 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 round down — with special handling when a 5 is dropped (round to the nearest even digit). For example: 1.05 rounds to 1.0, 1.15 rounds to 1.2, and 1.45 rounds to 1.4. Small as it seems, inconsistent rounding across a reporting team introduces real variance into monthly averages.

2. Data Mismanagement

Every value on a DMR should be traceable — from the original sample collection, through every calculation step, to the final reported number. When utilities can’t reconstruct that chain, it’s usually because data is scattered across disconnected systems: a lab information system, a shared spreadsheet, a compliance calendar in someone’s inbox.

Before submission, DMRs should be checked against the permit itself to confirm the report reflects the correct parameters, monitoring frequencies, sample types, and sampling locations — not just whatever the previous month’s report happened to include.

3. Calculation Errors

Some of the most common — and most avoidable — DMR mistakes include:

• Using the average flow and average concentration instead of dividing total pollutant loading by the number of samples
• Pairing maximum flow with the highest recorded concentration, even though the two don’t necessarily occur on the same day
• Averaging pH values arithmetically, when pH is a logarithmic scale that requires a different calculation approach
• Calculating fecal coliform using an arithmetic mean instead of the required geometric mean
• Reporting a monthly average concentration without weighting it by flow
• Including sample data collected outside the current reporting month in that month’s calculation

A second, independently trained reviewer checking every calculation before submission remains one of the simplest ways to catch these errors — but it only works if that review step is built into the process every time, not just when someone remembers.

How Utilities Can Manage DMRs at Scale

For a single-outfall facility, DMR management might mean one calendar reminder and one spreadsheet. For utilities managing multiple permits, multiple outfalls, pretreatment programs, and biosolids reporting simultaneously, the math changes fast.

Managing DMRs at scale generally requires:

• A centralized reporting calendar that tracks every due date across every permit — not one calendar per program or per staff member.
• A single source of truth for data so lab results, operational data, and compliance calculations all reference the same underlying dataset, rather than versions that can drift apart.
• Defined ownership at every step — who collects the data, who calculates it, who reviews it, who signs and submits it — so a single point of failure (one person on vacation) doesn’t put a deadline at risk.
• A documented review process, not an informal one, so calculation checks happen consistently rather than depending on who’s available that week.

How Automation Changes DMR Management

Digital compliance platforms don’t remove the need for expert judgment — permits still need to be read and interpreted by people who understand them. What automation removes is the repetitive, error-prone manual work sitting between good data and an accurate report.

In practice, that means:

• Automating repetitive data entry, so results move from the lab or SCADA system into the DMR without manual copy-and-paste — one of the most common points where transcription errors creep in.
• Generating calculations automatically, applying the correct averaging method (arithmetic vs. geometric, flow-weighted vs. not) consistently, every time, rather than relying on a spreadsheet formula someone built years ago.
• Flagging anomalies before submission — a result outside historical range, a missing parameter, a calculation that doesn’t match the permit’s required method — so problems surface before the report goes out, not after a regulator catches them.
• Keeping permits and reporting requirements in one accessible place, so the whole team is working from the current version rather than whatever copy happens to be on a shared drive.
• Maintaining a full audit trail, so every DMR can be traced back to its source data if a regulator — or a utility’s own leadership — asks questions.

None of this eliminates the need for trained compliance staff. It changes what they spend their time on: less time reconstructing spreadsheets and chasing down data, more time on the judgment calls that actually require expertise.See how this works in practice on Klir’s wastewater compliance platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Discharge Monitoring Report (DMR)? A DMR is a self-reporting form required under most NPDES permits, used to report the results of required sampling and monitoring to the permitting authority — typically EPA or a delegated state agency — on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis.

What happens if a DMR is submitted late? A DMR not reported within 30 days of its due date generates a formal reporting violation on EPA’s Noncompliance Report. If the entire report is missing 31+ days past due, it’s classified as a Category I violation; if only part of it is missing, it’s a Category II violation. Either can contribute to a facility’s significant non-compliance status, independent of whether any effluent limit was exceeded.

Do all utilities have to submit DMRs electronically now? Yes. EPA’s NPDES Electronic Reporting Rule has been in effect for DMRs since December 2016, and the rule’s second phase — covering additional report types — became fully mandatory as of December 21, 2025. Utilities should confirm with their permitting authority whether they report through NetDMR or a state-specific eDMR system.

What’s the most common cause of DMR errors? Most preventable DMR errors trace back to one of four causes: misreading or misunderstanding the NPDES permit itself, applying the wrong state-specific rule (rounding, non-detect formatting, averaging periods), data mismanagement across disconnected systems, and calculation mistakes — particularly around flow-weighted averages, geometric means for fecal coliform, and pH averaging.

Can software actually reduce DMR errors, or does it just move the risk? When implemented well, digital compliance platforms reduce the two biggest risk factors in DMR reporting: manual data entry and inconsistent calculation methods. Automated platforms apply the correct calculation logic every time and flag values that fall outside expected ranges before submission — but they still rely on trained staff to interpret permits correctly and review flagged results.

How often do utilities need to submit DMRs? It depends on the permit. Most NPDES permits specify a required monitoring and reporting frequency — commonly monthly, but sometimes quarterly, semi-annual, or annual depending on the parameter, the facility’s discharge history, and the permitting authority’s risk assessment.

Related Reading

• On the Path to Full NPDES Compliance
• How Should IT Departments Adapt to EPA eReporting?
• Macon Water Authority’s Compliance Makeover: From Paper to Precision

Ready to Simplify DMR Management and Strengthen NPDES Compliance?

Whether you’re managing a single-outfall facility or a multi-permit compliance program, the tools you use to read, calculate, and submit DMRs shape how much risk sits between your data and your reporting deadline.

Explore how Klir helps utilities centralize compliance data, automate DMR calculations, and reduce reporting risk — or schedule a personalized demo to see it applied to your permits.

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Water Utility Data Migration: Why Implementations Stall—and How Utilities Can Reduce Risk

When water utilities evaluate new software, the conversation often starts with features.

Can it automate compliance reporting?

Will it improve operational visibility?

Can it integrate with existing systems?

Those are important questions. But according to Elaine Kelly, the moment that often determines whether a modernization project succeeds or struggles happens after the purchase decision has already been made.

It’s implementation.

In Klir’s recent webinar, The 24-Hour Data Migration: Redefining Implementation for Water Utilities, Elaine Kelly and Data Consultant Dani Tahir explored why software implementations so often fall behind schedule, what makes water utility data migration uniquely challenging, and how utilities can dramatically reduce implementation risk.

For utility leaders, operations managers, pretreatment coordinators, and CIOs evaluating modernization initiatives, the discussion highlighted an important reality:

Implementation is not simply a technical exercise. It’s the first step toward realizing value from any software investment.

Why Implementation Matters More Than Software Features

A new software platform cannot improve compliance, increase efficiency, or reduce operational risk until it is properly configured, adopted, and integrated into daily operations.

Implementation includes:

• Migrating historical data
• Configuring workflows
• Setting up monitoring programs
• Integrating systems
• Training users
• Establishing reporting processes

Until those activities are complete, utilities have not yet realized the value of their investment.

As Kelly explained during the webinar, implementation is often the first real partnership test between a utility and its software provider.

The quality of that experience can significantly influence user adoption, executive confidence, and long-term project success.

The Hidden Cost of Delayed Implementations

Research cited during the webinar found that approximately 67% of enterprise software implementations take longer than expected.

For water utilities, those delays can have real consequences.

Projects that extend beyond planned timelines often create:

• Increased operational disruption
• Additional internal resource requirements
• Delayed return on investment
• Reduced user confidence
• Executive skepticism toward future modernization initiatives

While software vendors frequently focus on functionality, utility leaders are increasingly evaluating implementation predictability as a critical component of vendor selection.

A platform may offer excellent capabilities, but if implementation creates months of disruption, the business case becomes more difficult to justify.

Why Water Utility Data Migration Is So Challenging

Unlike many industries, water utilities operate in highly complex data environments.

Operational, laboratory, compliance, and asset data often reside across multiple disconnected systems that have evolved over many years.

This complexity creates several common implementation challenges.

1. Data Formatting Inconsistencies

Many utilities manage data across:

• Legacy databases
• Excel spreadsheets
• Laboratory systems
• PDF records
• Shared drives
• Custom applications

Even when information is accurate, data structures frequently differ from system to system.

Before migration can occur, those datasets must be standardized and organized into formats that can be interpreted consistently.

2. Parameter Normalization

Water quality data presents another challenge.

The same parameter may appear in multiple forms:

• Ammonia
• NH3
• Ammonia-N
• NH3-N

While these may represent the same underlying measurement, software systems often interpret them differently.

Without normalization, reporting accuracy and compliance tracking can be compromised.

3. Unit Conversion Complexity

Utilities commonly manage measurements using different units.

For example:

• Milligrams per liter (mg/L)
• Micrograms per liter (µg/L)

Consolidating these datasets requires careful conversion and validation to ensure consistency across historical records and reporting outputs.

4. Identifying the Source of Truth

Many utilities maintain overlapping datasets across multiple systems.

A compliance manager may rely on one system.

A laboratory may use another.

Operations teams may maintain supplemental spreadsheets.

During migration, identifying the authoritative source of information becomes critical.

Without a clearly defined source of truth, conflicting records can introduce risk into reporting and operational decision-making.

5. Limited Internal Bandwidth

Perhaps the most significant challenge isn’t technical at all.

Utility staff are busy operating treatment plants, managing permits, responding to regulators, and maintaining infrastructure.

Most utility professionals are experts in water operations—not data engineering.

Yet traditional implementations often require customers to spend weeks or months:

• Cleaning data
• Formatting spreadsheets
• Mapping parameters
• Preparing imports

That additional workload can quickly slow project timelines.

Why Traditional Migration Approaches Create Risk

Historically, software vendors have often placed significant responsibility on the customer.

The process typically looks something like this:

1. Utility identifies data.
2. Utility cleanses data.
3. Utility validates data.
4. Vendor imports data.

The challenge is obvious.

The people being asked to perform this work are already managing full-time operational responsibilities.

As a result, projects become dependent on limited internal resources and competing priorities.

This creates delays, frustration, and uncertainty.

Rethinking the Data Migration Process

At Klir, the implementation team began asking a different question:

What if utilities didn’t need to become data migration experts?

Rather than requiring customers to standardize and cleanse data before migration begins, Klir’s implementation approach focuses on removing as much of that burden as possible from utility teams.

Instead of spending weeks preparing exports, utilities can provide data in its existing format.

Klir’s implementation specialists then handle the heavy lifting.

This shift changes the conversation from:

“Prepare your data and send it to us.”

to:

“Send us your data and we’ll help prepare it.”

For many utilities, that difference can significantly reduce implementation friction.

Inside Klir’s 24-Hour Data Migration Approach

The concept behind Klir’s 24-Hour Data Migration is straightforward.

Rather than relying on extensive manual preparation, Klir uses automated processes to accelerate standardization and validation.

The process consists of three primary stages.

Step 1: Automated Standardization

Incoming datasets are analyzed using algorithms designed to identify:

• Parameters
• Units of measurement
• Analysis methods
• Data structures

The system standardizes records and assigns confidence scores to its recommendations.

Step 2: Human Validation

Automation accelerates the process, but expert oversight remains essential.

Utilities review lower-confidence matches and validate assumptions before migration proceeds.

This ensures data quality while dramatically reducing manual effort.

Step 3: Data Migration

Once validation is complete, data is imported into Klir.

Depending on dataset size and complexity, this process can often be completed within hours rather than weeks.

While a full implementation still requires workflow configuration, user onboarding, and training, the migration phase itself becomes significantly faster.

The Human Side of Successful Implementations

One of the most important themes from the webinar had nothing to do with technology.

It was trust.

Implementation teams often work directly with:

• Pretreatment Coordinators
• Environmental Compliance Officers
• Water Quality Specialists
• Laboratory Managers
• Operations Leaders

These individuals are the day-to-day experts responsible for keeping programs running.

When implementation feels chaotic, confidence declines.

When communication is structured, expectations are clear, and timelines are predictable, adoption becomes significantly easier.

This is one reason why successful implementations depend on more than technology alone.

They require:

• Clear project management
• Defined responsibilities
• Regular communication
• Executive alignment
• Change management planning

The best implementations create confidence throughout the organization—not just within the project team.

What Utility Leaders Should Ask Before Buying Software

Whether you’re evaluating Klir or any other platform, implementation should be a major part of the buying process.

Consider asking vendors:

• What is your average implementation timeline?
• How much data preparation is required from our team?
• Who is responsible for data cleansing?
• How do you handle parameter normalization?
• How do you validate migrated data?
• What implementation resources are included?
• How do you manage executive communication during onboarding?
• What happens if unexpected data challenges emerge?

The answers to these questions often reveal more about project success than a product demo alone.

The Future of Water Utility Modernization

Water utilities continue to face increasing complexity.

Regulatory requirements are expanding.

Data volumes are growing.

Leadership teams need greater visibility into compliance and operations.

At the same time, utility resources remain constrained.

The organizations that modernize successfully will be those that reduce implementation risk, accelerate time-to-value, and build confidence across stakeholders.

Technology plays an important role in that transformation.

But as this webinar highlighted, implementation is where modernization truly begins.

The future of water utility software isn’t just better functionality.

It’s creating implementation experiences that help utilities move faster, reduce risk, and focus on what matters most: delivering safe, reliable water services to their communities.

Ready to Modernize Your Compliance and Operations Programs?

Whether you’re evaluating industrial pretreatment software, wastewater compliance solutions, drinking water management systems, or a broader compliance management platform, implementation should be part of the conversation from day one.

Explore Klir’s platform capabilities, review customer success stories, or schedule a personalized demo to learn how utilities are red

‍

If you follow the technology industry today, you’ve almost certainly heard about how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming everything from hardware and engineering, to data science and analytics, to everyday tools like search engines and apps.

The water industry has been no exception. Water utilities already use machine learning and other similarly sophisticated data analysis technologies to help with pipe maintenance and leak detection, LSL replacement, contaminant identification and more.

But the latest wave of AI innovation, particularly large language model tools like ChatGPT, promise to bring the fruits of AI out of the laboratory and machine shop into the rest of the utility to help tackle some of the biggest management challenges of the 21st century. 

Here we’ll take a look at how water utility managers and administrators could very quickly start using tools like Klir’s ChatGPT integration to streamline and save time on management-related tasks like permitting and compliance, project management, emergency response, planning and more. 

In particular, we’ll look at how these tools could be leveraged to remove a lot of the friction surrounding water quality program management, a process that involves gathering and ingesting large amounts of data: an ideal candidate for automation and AI.

The ChatGPT-Driven AI ‘Renaissance’

If you’ve ever performed a Google search or asked Spotify for a music recommendation, you’ve already used algorithms or machine learning, the building blocks of AI, to help you get what you need.  

Large language models like ChatGPT, however, are a recent breakthrough that could make those tools easier for non-technology specialists to use and apply to their work. 

Unlike nascent AI systems that relied on specific programmed rules, large language models like ChatGPT learn from patterns in data, enabling them to provide more nuanced and contextually relevant information.

ChatGPT, in particular, is designed to generate human-like text responses and engage in interactive conversations, making it an ideal tool for managers, administrators and other workers at the utility with non-technical backgrounds who need quick and accurate answers to management-related queries.

“It finds the most relevant pieces of information, even if it’s millions of documents or data points, and presents the top ranked results to the language model, [which] lets you have detailed, informed interactions with your data,” Microsoft’s head of Azure Cognitive Search Pablo Castro explained during a recent presentation on ChatGPT applications.

Secured with enterprise-grade security in Microsoft Azure, Klir’s own Chat GPT integration gives users the ability to query millions of data points within the utility’s private internal data, all while respecting the information protection controls put in place.

“Because the knowledge lives outside of the ChatGPT model, you’re in control of it, and it’s not used to train the model,” says Castro. “And equally important from an enterprise perspective: any chat session state lives entirely within your application. Whether you keep it or not, and where, is fully up to you.”

How AI Can Help Tackle the Problem of 21st-Century Water Management

The management of water resources in the 21st century presents a dizzying number of challenges, with factors like increasing demand, ageing infrastructure, climate change, and stricter regulations all placing additional pressure on our water systems.

AI can play a crucial role in addressing each of these challenges by automating away some of the most arduous administrative tasks that managers must deal with on a day-to-day basis. Some key areas where AI can make a significant impact include:

Project Management

Whether it’s implementing infrastructure projects like pipeline replacements or capital upgrades, navigating amalgamation and other governance changes, or simply navigating the endless to-do list involved in running a large urban utility, most of the tasks involved in 21st century water utility management requires careful planning and coordination. 

A quick, intuitive-to-use AI assistant can help with almost every aspect of project management, whether it be by analyzing historical data, predicting potential bottlenecks, optimizing resource allocation, or providing real-time monitoring and reporting. 

A recent study from MIT confirmed that ChatGPT can raise an organization’s average productivity, team morale and collaboration while increasing “job satisfaction and self-efficacy.”

As workers become more comfortable with AI tools, their ability to help streamline projects and deliver them more efficiently will only increase. 

Emergency Response and Planning

When natural disasters or water contamination incidents occur, quick and informed decision-making is crucial. AI-powered tools can process real-time data from sensor networks, work order management software, and even social media to provide early warnings, assess risks, and support decision-making during emergency situations. 

One large utility in the UK already uses AI tools to process data from over 7,000 pressure and flow sensors every 15 minutes, enabling operators to reliably detect pipe bursts and leaks within minutes of them occurring. 

With intuitive tools like ChatGPT, those insights could be made available to water professionals at the utility, enhancing situational awareness and helping utilities to respond effectively to minimize the impact on water supplies and public health.

Permitting and Compliance

Water utility managers are often burdened with complex regulatory requirements and lengthy permitting processes involving countless pages of forms, applications, regulations and reporting deadlines. It isn’t unusual for large urban utilities to manage thousands of individual regulation schedules and permits at a single time, and all too often the burden of managing all of that paperwork can end up falling on the shoulders of a single employee.

With Klir’s ChatGPT integration, a utility worker can alleviate some of that burden by asking the platform to retrieve important data, summarize important deadlines, or even draft an email to a superior explaining why they’re confident they’re in compliance.

The sheer volume of data and paperwork involved in compliance makes it a perfect candidate for automation with AI, which can streamline these tasks by automating document review, analyzing compliance data, and identifying potential issues or discrepancies, saving time, reducing human error, and ensuring adherence to regulatory standards.

Why AI Tools Are a Particularly Good Fit for Water Quality Programs

Monitoring and maintaining water quality involves numerous complex data-intensive processes, requiring continuous monitoring of various parameters such as pH, turbidity, metals, bacteria and more.

Traditionally these monitoring processes involve manual sampling, laboratory testing, and data analysis, all of which are time-consuming and resource-intensive. Moreover, the vast amount of data generated from monitoring activities makes it challenging to extract actionable insights in a timely manner.

Tools like Klir’s ChatGPT integration can help water quality professionals get to the data they need more quickly, generate quantitative insights into sampling results, identify areas of non-compliance, and save time by simplifying or completely automating away administrative tasks.

Predictive Analysis of Water Quality

AI-powered sensors and IoT (Internet of Things) devices can collect real-time data on water quality parameters, providing a continuous stream of information. This data can be analyzed by AI algorithms to identify trends, predict changes, and detect potential contaminants or hazards. This proactive approach allows utilities to take preventive measures before water quality problems escalate, thus safeguarding public health.

With conversational AI tools, querying that information becomes easier than ever before. Instead of sifting through numerous dashboards, getting the information you need can be as simple as asking ChatGPT for it in the form of a question, e.g.: “hey Klir, where are we likely to get limit exceedances in the next 90 days?” 

Integrating Administrative Tasks with Sampling Results Data

When it comes time to act on important data, AI assistants can help automate the administrative side of water quality management as well. 

Instead of sifting through numerous spreadsheets or charts, you might simply ask your AI assistant to “write a formal email response to my manager outlining results of Well 57.” 

You might also ask the assistant to let your manager know that your position on those results is that the utility is compliant, or that the results indicate the need to take action. With tools like ChatGPT, you can spend less time digging for data and drafting emails, and more time looking ahead and making sure your department is ready to take on future challenges proactively.

Fast Quantitative Insights and Reporting of Non-Compliance

Quick: what percentage of lead tests at site #42 have been non-compliant so far this year? With an AI assistant, generating quantitative insights from sampling data and flagging potential non-compliance transforms from a time-consuming, potentially error-prone process into a quick and painless case of asking the system a question.

Respecting Internal Information Controls

When ChatGPT is deployed on an organization’s internal servers, the AI model can learn from your data without the need to ever share it externally, making it easy to respect the utility’s information protection controls and keeping sensitive customer data, infrastructure details, and compliance records safe.

Why AI Could Represent the Next Big Leap Forward in 21st Century Water Utility Management 

Recent advances in AI technology like ChatGPT holds immense potential for transforming water utility management. By leveraging AI tools, utility managers and administrators can streamline and save time on management-related tasks such as permitting and compliance, project management, emergency response and planning, and specifically supporting water quality programs. 

"Our dream is that Klir becomes a member of your team,” says Klir CEO David Lynch. “With help from Klir’s ChatGPT integration, workers at every level of the utility will be able to spend less time dealing with repetitive tasks and more time learning from their peers and tackling the monumental challenges of 21st century water management.”

With the ability to process and analyze vast amounts of data, AI will empower utilities to make more informed decisions, improve operational efficiency, and ultimately ensure the provision of high-quality water services to communities. And as AI continues to advance, the future of water management looks promising, with increased sustainability, resilience, and responsiveness to the challenges of the 21st century.

Today we’re excited to make our biggest product announcement to date! 

Klir Comply is a new integrated platform that builds upon what is already the most comprehensive software for water quality and compliance management on the market today.

This product release boldly moves the needle forward on compliance digitization for water utilities.

Meet Klir Comply

Today we’re launching Klir Comply, the foundation of our product, and the base framework we’ll be using to support water and wastewater utilities in their journey towards resilience and sustainability moving forward.

Its key purpose is to give you clear and accurate information on your compliance status and answer that simple but potentially costly question: 

“Is my water safe and compliant?”

From compliance to water quality and asset management data, it fills an industry gap and solves the growing problem of data quality and integrity, making it easier than ever before for water professionals to access impactful performance insights and make water better.

1. Supercharged Compliance Monitoring and Reporting

Klir Comply’s Drinking Water, Wastewater and Environmental tools make it easier than ever to develop, manage and track large and complex monitoring programs.

Built-in features like Safe Drinking Water Act limits and rules eliminate the need to calculate and monitor a wide range of parameters, regulatory requirements, limit sets, infrastructures, locations, and more, saving users hours every week in administrative busywork.

Klir Comply’s powerful new DMR tools in particular greatly simplify the wastewater compliance process, saving users hours of work every month while:

✅ Ensuring perfect alignment with NPDES and NetDMR requirements

✅ Minimizing common errors, duplications and discrepancies

✅ Reducing the risk of non-compliance and penalties

With Klir Comply, you have a new level of confidence in the accuracy and timeliness of your compliance reports, saving you resources, time and stress.

2. A New and Improved Mobile App for Sampling

Data entry in the field can be a slow, tricky and potentially error-prone process. But not with our new mobile app.

With Klir’s mobile features, recording data in the field is simple and secure. Its fieldwork-optimized interface runs smoothly on mobile devices, and Klir’s offline synching functionality makes field sampling possible even in remote areas with no internet connection.

3. Analytics and PowerBI Integration

As the operating system for water, Klir Comply provides a set of comprehensive and intelligible dashboards that give employees the information they need for their own specific needs—from the CEO to the treatment plant operator.

We’re happy to announce today that Klir Comply will seamlessly integrate with Power BI, unlocking the power of your wastewater data with powerful analytics. 

Real-time insights into plant operations and water quality trends made possible through this integration will help operators optimize plant performance while staying one step ahead of potential issues.

Insights Powered by ChatGPT

Today we’re also happy to announce that Klir will become the first water utility software to integrate with ChatGPT-4 through Microsoft Azure.

Combining the conversational benefits of ChatGPT with each utility’s water quality management and compliance data will greatly simplify tedious but critical tasks, all while ensuring internal data stays secure and private at all times.

“To be able to ask complex compliance water management questions and immediately receive accurate answers is seismic. We think it will help organizations around the world to slow the global water crisis,” said David Lynch, CEO of Klir.

Users will now be able to simply query “Boots,” Klir’s AI-powered assistant, in the form of a question, allowing them to:

• ‍Integrate administrative tasks with sampling results data
  “Boots, write a formal email response to my manager outlining results of Well 57 and let him know that my position on it is that we are compliant.”‍
• Easily generate quantitative insights into sampling results
  “Boots, what percentage of Lead results have been non-compliant so far this year?”‍
• ‍Perform predictive analysis of water quality
  “Boots, where are we likely to get limit exceedances in the next 90 days?”

The tool is now available in Beta to select Klir users. This feature is available on an ‘opt-in’ basis, so the utility’s software administrator can control whether it gets used.

That means, when using Klir’s ChatGPT integration, you can trust that your data is secure, all while working with a partner dedicated to refining and improving the delivery of AI-powered insights in the water sector.

Now Available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace

We’re also excited to announce that starting today, Klir is partnering with Microsoft and making its software available for purchase and download through the Azure app store.

This new partnership promises to supercharge and bring a new level of functionality to Klir, making it easier than ever before to bring all of your work under one umbrella.

🔒 With Azure Marketplace, your IT department can have Klir up and running within your ecosystem in a matter of days with the confidence that your data is secure and protected by some of the world’s most thorough cybersecurity protocols.

💸 You can also reduce IT costs by eliminating multiple legacy point solutions, getting more out of your Microsoft investment, and even reducing time spent on support tickets.

🧭 The days of having incoherent data dotted around your organization are coming to an end. Building on tools like GPT, Azure, Power BI and Sharepoint, in the near future you’ll see Klir even further integrated into the Microsoft stack, from Teams, to Powerpoint, Outlook and Word, to name just a few.

Welcome to the Future of Water

We’re so excited to get these tools into the hands of our users and to see how utilities will use Klir Comply to streamline and improve their work.

We’re confident that this new suite of features presents one of the most exciting advancements in water utility software to date, and we can’t wait to see how experts working on the front lines of our industry will use them to make water better.

Over the past 30 years, the amount of data wastewater treatment plants typically generate has increased exponentially. Systems for storing and organizing that data have struggled to keep up.

In many cases, water utilities have come to see the sheer amount of data on file as a liability rather than an asset: something that needs to be constantly monitored, corralled, and inevitably pushed to the side.

However, as some researchers have noted, that massive pile of data overwhelming your water utility has the potential to become a goldmine.

When data is organized and shared effectively, it becomes a powerful tool for upgrading the efficiency and performance of your wastewater treatment system, anticipating disturbances before they happen and adapting to stricter standards of compliance.

The Explosive Growth of Water Treatment Data

One study showed that a single large wastewater treatment plant, serving 800,000 to 3 million people, can generate up to 30,000 data points. These include everything from sampling data essential for reporting compliance and meeting environmental regulations, to GPS coordinates, call logs, field notes, and more.

Such a large volume of data has an impact on individual personnel. For example: a single employee at a large water utility is often responsible for overseeing more than 40,000 backflow prevention devices, each of which generates annual inspection data. The system used to organize such data has an enormous impact on that employee’s day-to-day job, affecting their ability to share information, file reports, and ensure compliance.

On its own, the overarching project of compliance—particularly tracking permits—represents an enormous task. One water utility uses Klir to manage over 3,000 permits, a task that would be daunting without Klir’s fully configurable data management systems.

As Lluís Corominas, a researcher at the Catalan Institute for Water Research, writes:

Plant operators have an overwhelming stream of data at their hands, which is very difficult to process and analyze in a timely enough fashion to allow for better understanding or proper decision-making.

The earliest tremors of this explosion of data generation can be traced back to the 1970s, when one of the hottest topics at international wastewater treatment conferences was data collection from sensors.

The sensors being used were adapted from other industries and ill-fitted for use in wastewater treatment systems, but attendees were already discussing the best ways to automate the collection and management of data in their plants.

The same report lists four primary reasons why managing water treatment data (referred to as information, control, and automation [ICA]) has since become such an enormous task:

• Effluent quality standards, which became more demanding and complex
• Economic factors, which encouraged water utilities to develop automated, money-saving compliance management tools that generated more data than prior solutions
• Plant complexity, one of the most important driving factors, which increased as methods of water treatment advanced
• Improved tools, such as advanced remote sensors, which generated more data for water utilities to manage

With such a large amount of information to deal with, one of the most important tools at a water utility’s disposal is data centralization.

The Importance of Data Centralization

Utilities are increasingly data-rich but information-poor. As Corominas notes, a large number of utilities have become host to “data graveyards,” massive stores of data that cannot be easily navigated or accessed.

The data graveyard is a sort of invisible weight burdening a water utility, demanding resources to be maintained, causing a constant drain on time and money, but rarely producing outright catastrophic effects.

Individuals may be forced to enter the graveyard on a regular basis, in order to dredge up information for the sake of renewing permits, for instance, or to confirm the status of different backflow devices. But each of these is simply a slow, laborious task–one that creates drag on standard processes without ever pushing them to their breaking point.

The cumulative effect of the data graveyard may be huge, but it’s difficult to see. That’s especially the case when pieces of it are owned by different individuals and teams, or scattered across multiple disconnected databases.

If the cumulative effect of a data graveyard is difficult to grasp, its potential for good may be even more elusive. Your water utility could have a huge amount of data on hand that might be leveraged to speed up and improve processes, anticipate problems, and plan for the future. But so long as it’s a fragmentary mess and a headache to access, its potential is impossible to realize.

The first step in converting your data graveyard to a goldmine is centralizing it. Bringing all your data together in one place, under one administrative dashboard, lets you assess its potential.

The best tool for the job is a comprehensive software as a service (SaaS) solution. Learn more about why SaaS makes sense for water.

Once your data is centralized and easier to navigate, it’s ready to be mined.

Gold Mining for Data

To push the metaphor to the breaking point, once you’ve converted your data graveyard into a goldmine, it’s time to start mining for gold.

“Mining for gold,” in this sense, means converting raw data into information—becoming both data-rich and information-rich. The biggest opportunities for leveraging data into information fall under three categories: machine learning, improvement of remote and real-time monitoring, and increased collaboration.

The Increasing Promise of Machine Learning

Increasingly, machine learning shows potential to have a huge impact on how water utilities leverage their data to improve operations.

Machine learning is, in brief, the process of using computers to analyze large amounts of data, discover patterns, and use those patterns to make predictions, solve problems, and answer questions.

Already, machine learning has been applied to water utility data in order to track the spread of COVID-19, reduce energy usage, and detect compliance violations.

Machine Learning and Wastewater

By testing wastewater samples, infectious disease experts are already able to predict upsurges in COVID-19 infections three to seven days before standard swab testing does the same.

That makes wastewater a window into COVID infection rates among particular populations—provided you have the tools to examine the data accurately.

While current systems for monitoring COVID via wastewater suffer some gaps in information—partly due to reduced detectability in people who have been vaccinated—machine learning has shown promise when it comes to predicting upsurges and tracking COVID’s spread.

What’s more, similar techniques can be used to track other viruses, such as norovirus and polio. You can learn more from our article on wastewater-based epidemiology.

Improving Remote and Real-Time Monitoring Capabilities with Water Data

COVID-19 lockdowns around the world fast-forwarded a general trend, across many industries, towards remote-first work policies. The lockdowns also drove home just how important it is for organizations to be able to access and manage their data remotely.

In this sense, water utilities were ahead of the curve: Many utilities already remotely manage thousands of infrastructure assets using sensors, controllers, and transmitters.

That remote capability is wasted, however, if data is fragmentary—stored natively on a variety of different media (harddrives, thumb drives, backup devices, etc.), accessible only by particular teams or individuals.

Even utilities who stored data in a centralized fashion on their own local servers faced problems when moving to remote working arrangements, as personnel encountered technical barriers to accessing the organization’s intranet from offsite computers.

A cloud-based SaaS (i.e., Software as a service) is the best solution for utilities that want to make their data available to all relevant personnel, regardless of their locations, at all times.

With the help of such a system, a water utility can:

• Cut down on work-related travel and site visits
• Put in place more accurate and effective alert and notification systems
• Shorten response times when issues arise
• Scale new operations quickly across the organization
• Respond nimbly to staffing shortages or future lockdown situations

Get More Value out of Your Wastewater Compliance Program

Curious about how technology can help your utility tackle NPDES and other wastewater-related compliance challenges for good? Download the guide and book a demo of Klir today.

How Water Utilities Can Use Machine Learning to Reduce Their Electric Bill

In Singapore, the Ulu Pandan Water Reclamation Plant used machine learning to analyze its operational data, and were able to reduce aeration energy usage by 15%.

Instead of using reactive control mechanisms, which adjust wastewater treatment processes in reaction to changing nutrient levels, flow rates, etc., the machine learning algorithm in use at Ulu Pandan creates predictive models, making fine adjustments to the system earlier than it would otherwise.

Effectively, the automated systems at the treatment plant spend less energy playing catch-up with changing conditions—opting, instead, to literally “go with the flow.”

Detecting Violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) With Machine Learning

In theory, some water treatment facilities are more likely to violate the CWA than others—there’s just no way to know which ones. Unless you apply machine learning to the task, that is.

In 2018, researchers from Stanford demonstrated that machine learning could be used to predict the likelihood of particular water treatment facilities violating the CWA. In theory, with that information, inspectors could be sent to the facilities most likely to be in violation of the CWA, rather than to facilities with a very low likelihood of being found non-compliant.

As their paper in Nature Sustainability demonstrates, using such a system can double the number of violators caught, while allocating inspection resources more effectively.

There’s also an element of deterrence at work: the researchers theorize that, if water treatment facilities know their data is being monitored and that a machine learning algorithm will be able to anticipate any future violations, they will be more diligent, working harder to ensure violations never occur at all.

Improving Collaboration with Centralized Water Data

Machine learning and the rise of the distributed workforce are both exciting aspects of water utility data management. In fact, they could have a major impact on the future of how water utilities operate.

But organizing and centralizing data has the most immediate impact upon a water utility’s most valuable resource: its people.

When data is accessible to all personnel, across all teams, collaboration becomes more fluid, easy, and intuitive. It’s easier for engineers, compliance professionals, operations management, and other stakeholders to take advantage of the utility’s vast store of data, and use it to everyone’s benefit.

Ready to Turn Your Compliance Data Into an Asset?

Klir’s compliance tracking tools help utilities get more out of their data while cutting down on administration and record-keeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems. Learn more and book a demo today.

Software as a service (SaaS) has transformed the way we build businesses, organize information and communicate with other people, but the water sector has lagged behind. Most utilities continue to use desktop-based legacy software to manage everything from compliance data, to assets, to customer billing and spatial data. For a sector known for its conservative approach to technology and limited budgets, it’s understandable that utilities would be slow to embrace these tools. But SaaS applications present water and wastewater utilities with a unique opportunity to budget more effectively, improve internal processes, and buy tools that are uniquely tailored to their needs.Here’s why and how utilities can fully take advantage of this exciting new wave of technology and services.

What is SaaS?

If you’ve ever used tools like Dropbox, Shopify or Salesforce, you’ve used Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. They’re delivered to the customer through a web browser interface via the cloud, are continuously and automatically updated, and are provided to the customer on a subscription basis. These tools have transformed the way we use software, making it accessible to anyone with an internet connection, easier to maintain and improve on the developer’s end, and also faster to deploy for the organization. Today they play a crucial role in the modern workplace, particularly at large organizations where implementing new technologies and bringing users up to speed with new tools can be a challenge. But for water utilities in particular, SaaS presents a few crucial benefits:

1. Ease of Configurability and Integration

How 'configurable' something is refers to how easy it is to adjust and tailor an existing piece of software without altering a single line of code. The more configurable a system is, the more adjustments the user can make. SaaS applications tend to be highly configurable, making them cheaper and easier to use than custom-built software.Software integrations bring together different kinds of software to produce a single, well-oiled, unified system.Integrations don’t just save you time: they allow your system to do things that individual software modules simply wouldn’t be able to do by themselves, like pull data into dashboards, generate and submit reports, mine large datasets for interesting insights, and more.Many SaaS applications boast powerful integration capabilities, making it easier to seamlessly integrate them into your existing processes.When it comes to the water sector, configurable SaaS with powerful integration capabilities presents an exciting opportunity. Gone are the days of using applications built for other industries with a raft of features you don’t need. With SaaS tools like Klir, utilities get all off the functionality they need, and nothing they don’t need.

2. Continuous and Automatic Improvement

By their nature, SaaS tools are easier to update and improve. Instead of getting bogged down in manual patches or updates, developers can simply push them to the cloud, with little to no involvement needed from the end user. On the developer’s end, this makes it much easier to build ambitious roadmaps and continuously improve. While users enjoy uninterrupted access to their tools, developers can monitor how they’re using them in real time and make adjustments on the fly. Instead of improving reactively, developers can adopt a proactive approach to making the product better, anticipating users’ needs even before the user does. It's also important to note the service element of SaaS. Many developers today will go beyond what customers normally expect from a support team, using customer success teams to continuously liaise with and work on the product with customers to facilitate quick communication and iteration. With SaaS, developers and customers will often work together as partners to set priorities, shape the product roadmap, and build a product that is truly responsive to the end user's needs.

3. Pricing Is Simpler, More Flexible and Easier to Predict

Many traditional pricing models for software require you to pay for both a license up front, and also any maintenance, technical support, new versions and upgrades the developer releases down the line. If you plan on using that software for a while, those upfront and recurring costs can accumulate quickly and unpredictably. SaaS solves this problem by rolling all of those costs—support, maintenance, upgrades, patches, new releases, etc.—into a single subscription fee, simplifying and making your costs more predictable. Not sure you need all of the functionality of the full version? SaaS pricing also makes it easier to pick exactly what you need out of a software solution without paying for what you don’t with by-the-feature pricing. This can be especially useful if you aren’t sure yet how many users on your team will be using a particular app, or how much your use of the app might scale in the future. When it comes to SaaS, the name of the game is flexibility and speed. Buy and use exactly what you need, deploy it in your organization quickly, and let the developer take care of the rest.

Harness The Power of SaaS With Klir

We believe that utilities deserve world-class software custom-built for the water industry. Ready to see how scalable, flexible, continuously improving SaaS tools can help your utility overcome its biggest data challenges? Book a demo and get a tour of Klir today.

As you explore software options for your water utility, you’re bound to run across the terms customizable and configurable. While at first glance these terms may seem interchangeable, they have completely different meanings.Customizable software can be modified with the help of a software engineer. Configurable software can be adjusted and fine-tuned by the end user. That’s the most basic definition—but the differences go deeper.Understanding how customizable and configurable software options differ, and the pros and cons of each, gives you the power to make the most effective choice for your utility. In the long term, that saves you time and resources, smooths out bumps in the compliance and reporting process, and improves your bottom line.

Configuration vs. Customization: A Deeper Dive

Configurable software is adjustable within certain parameters set by the developer. Customizable software is, in theory, infinitely adjustable—so long as you have the resources to hire a developer to change the code for you.

The Chair Metaphor

Think of enterprise software as an office chair.

Your configurable office chair lets you set its height, increase or decrease lumbar support, adjust the tilt of the seat—just about anything you need to make it “just right” for whoever is using it.

However, you can’t take it apart. If you wanted to make really fundamental changes—like adding a lever-activated footrest—you’d be out of luck.Your customizable office chair is different. Sit in it for a moment, and you’ll realize there’s no way to adjust the height, the lumbar support, or the seat tilt. All of those are set by the manufacturer, with the aim of making the chair as comfortable as possible to the most number of people.

Good news, though: This chair can be taken apart. You just have to pay someone at the company that manufactured it to come over to your office and make the changes. Or, you may be able to hire a freelance chair engineer to take care of it instead.

Both types of chair, configurable and customizable, have their benefits and drawbacks. Climbing out of the chair metaphor and returning to enterprise software, that’s what we’ll cover below.

Configurable Software: Pros and Cons

The benefits of configurable software have to do with reduced cost and ease of maintenance, while the drawbacks have to do with hard limits on how much the software can be adapted or changed.

Pros of Configurable Software

• Lower Initial and Lifetime Costs – Because configurable software doesn’t need to be customized for each user, it’s cheaper to develop and deploy on a per-user basis. Those savings are then passed on to the customer. Since configurable software doesn’t need a computer engineer to make updates to code or perform maintenance, the cost of keeping it running is less than that of customizable software.
• Straightforward Scalability – In many cases, the capabilities of configurable software can be expanded by upgrading to a more advanced pricing package, or by purchasing an additional package that integrates with the current software. In the case of customizable software, making such changes typically requires paying engineers to change code. That costs more money, takes longer, and requires more administrative back and forth.
• Guaranteed Compatibility With Updates – Once an engineer changes software code, that software may no longer be compatible with upgrades from the original developer. So, even if you’ve managed to change the software to suit your needs, you may not be able to get updates essential for maintaining security and performance. When you use configurable software, none of the changes you make as a user alter code. Your software is always ready to be updated, and often does so seamlessly and automatically.
• Lower Cost of Cloud Hosting Is Passed On to End User – Cloud-based enterprise software is gradually overtaking locally hosted software in popularity, thanks to ease of maintenance and the reduced cost of hosting. Both configurable and customizable software can be hosted in the cloud, but only configurable software benefits from multi-tenant hosting. Multi-tenant hosting allows one instance of a particular application to run, while serving many users, each of whom has their own particular settings. Customizable software can’t do this, because each version of the app is different for each customer. A technical detail like this may seem like it would only be relevant to a software developer. But it affects your bottom line: the reduced cost of running multi-tenant enterprise software in the cloud gets passed on to you, the customer.

Cons of Configurable Software

• ‍A Definite Limit on Expandability – Configurable software is only configurable within limits set by the developer. If you require a high level of customization—beyond what the vast majority of users is looking for—you may find yourself constrained.
• ‍Too Many Options – Highly configurable software may present a huge swath of options to the user, making it adaptable to many different uses. For some, this can be overwhelming and difficult to navigate, compared to customized software that has been built for one specific use by one specific organization.

Configurable Software Tools Purpose-Built For Water Utilities

Klir brings all of your utility’s mission-critical data together in real time, so you can run a more efficient and sustainable organization. Book a demo of Klir today.

Customizable Software: Pros and Cons

While customizable software is more expensive than configurable software, and adapting it to your needs may be more arduous, it may still be the right choice for organizations with highly specific needs.

Pros of Customizable Software

• ‍Can Be an Easy Switch if You Already Have Engineers Working for You – If you already use a customizable software platform, but you’re upgrading to a new one, there’s a chance you already have in-house IT specialists or computer engineers working for you, or that you’ve developed a working relationship with contractors familiar with software in your industry. In that case, the cost of making necessary code-level changes to software may be less expensive or complicated than it would be for an organization that didn’t have these resources—making the cost-saving advantages of configurable software less significant.
• ‍Potentially Limitless Customization – If you have a unique set of circumstances that sets you apart from everyone else in your field, you may need a software platform that can be considerably altered to suit your needs. While configurable software is typically designed to meet the needs of a diverse set of customers, there are some cases where the options available to you just don’t fit. In that case, customizable software may be your best bet.

Cons of Customizable Software 

• ‍Expensive to Develop and Deploy – As covered in the Pros of configurable software section above, customizing software to suit your needs costs you (or the developer) considerably more than purchasing configurable software and adjusting its settings.
• ‍Potential for Getting Locked Into an Older Version – Since there is typically no guarantee that customizations you make to your software will be compatible with future versions, you may not be able to access updates from the developer—putting you at risk of performance issues or even security breaches.
• ‍High Cost of Maintenance – Changes to customizable software that may require hiring a computer engineer can be handled in configurable software by changing settings, upgrading your pricing package, or purchasing a new package from the developer. The result is a higher bill and more work to employ the services of an expert.
• ‍Need for Greater In-house Technical Expertise – Even if you hire an experienced engineer to make changes to your customizable software, you aren’t off the hook in terms of tech knowledge. Communicating your needs to an engineer, and communicating their feedback to stakeholders in your organization, requires a certain amount of familiarity with technology and the software development process. That may be a small amount, if your engineer is particularly good at communicating and the changes you’re requesting are fairly straightforward. Or it could be a large amount if neither is the case. Whereas configurable software is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, customizable software, by its nature, requires some background in tech, and a willingness to get “in the weeds” when it comes to technical matters.

Why Configurable Software Makes Sense for Water Utilities

If it seems like configurable software is—for most users, most of the time—the best choice for the majority of users, that’s because it is. But a few factors make configurable software the higher value option for water utilities in particular.

Every Water Utility is Different

The water utility of Juneau, Alaska has different needs from the water utility of El Paso, Texas. But each requires a software solution that can be adapted to fit its specific situation. Configurable water utility software like Klir is designed with such differences front of mind, so it’s a complete solution for every user.

Your Bottom Line Matters

When budgets get cut, the last thing you need is to sink thousands of dollars into hiring engineers to customize software you’ve already paid for. Configurable software is cheaper to adapt to your specific needs, and cheaper to maintain.

You Can Give Feedback on Changes That Matter

The developer of your configurable software didn’t personally alter the code to your specific needs, but that doesn’t mean they ignore their clients. All successful enterprise software platforms got where they are because they listened to their customers’ feedback while planning updates and new features. To take Klir as an example, we’re continually fielding suggestions and new ideas from our clients, so we can keep delivering a product that suits their needs while providing the most configurability possible.

Harness The Power of Configurable Software With Klir

Ready to see how configurable software can help you build a more resilient, streamlined and effective water utility? Book a demo and get a tour of Klir today.

Wastewater-based epidemiology is a scientific field that’s surged in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers have used wastewater to predict surges before they happen — a breakthrough that’s helped governments focus on preparation instead of reaction.

And it isn’t limited to COVID. Once the pandemic becomes endemic, researchers will still be on the hunt for pathogens that can cause issues for public health. In the best-case scenario, scientists could catch the next pandemic before it happens.

But the strategy requires gathering and sorting through huge amounts of data. That presents privacy and data management issues for utilities to overcome. We spoke with two experts about the possibilities of wastewater-based epidemiology, and what utilities should be doing now to prepare.

What Is Wastewater Epidemiology?

Think of wastewater-based epidemiology as reading tea leaves, but grosser.

Scientists take samples of human waste and analyze them for pathogens, like the virus that causes COVID-19. Researchers can then use the data to predict surges based on trends in where the pathogen is found and how much of it is there.

That allows local governments to ramp up public health measures like expanding health-care facilities and instituting mandates like masking or lockdowns.

The International Effort to Track COVID Using Wastewater

Most people have learned about wastewater epidemiology through the pandemic. Researchers’ ability to predict COVID trends has led to the field’s expansion.

Some public health officers have found it’s less helpful in their municipalities, though they’re sometimes not sure why. In a sign of the field’s still-emerging status, experts have debated just how much wastewater sampling can tell us about COVID.

In the United States and Canada, and many other jurisdictions, wastewater sampling decisions lie with local governments, limiting the data’s scope. But projects like COVIDPoops19 show the method’s worldwide spread and a glimpse of what it could become.

Its creator, University of California Merced professor Colleen Naughton, said she hopes every city in the world will eventually have its own wastewater epidemiology outpost — though she noted it’ll take a while to get there. Even though it’s cheaper than individual testing, “it still requires resources and … utility-level sampling, and then courier services, and then labs to analyze it,” she said.

What Could Wastewater Epidemiology Be Used for in the Future?

Some experts believe COVID tracking is just the beginning.

Naughton noted that the method was used to track polio outbreaks in the past. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now hopes to catch influenza, norovirus, fungal infections, hepatitis A and B, and antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) pathogens — bugs that have evolved to be resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

“We've had large hepatitis A outbreaks in California and Michigan, so it would have been nice to have more of a warning system about that,” she said.

Experts have long warned of AMR “superbugs” that could ravage the world in a similar — or worse — way to COVID-19. Wastewater epidemiology could potentially identify them before they spiral out of hand.

Wastewater testing could also be tested for opioids and other illicit drugs to combat the overdose epidemic, Naughton said.

Future-Proof Your Sampling Operation With Klir

Interested in learning how better data management can help you run more effective sampling programs? Book a demo of the Klir sampling module today.

What Challenges Will Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Create for Drinking and Wastewater Utilities?

Naughton and epidemiologist David Larsen raved, unprompted, about partnering and working with wastewater treatment plants.

“They don't get a lot of recognition for their important role,” Naughton said. “We go to the treatment plants and they're always running around, you know, the phone’s ringing off the hook, and they're like, ‘Yeah, sure, we'll take an extra sample for you.’ It's just been amazing what they've done to help. So we really appreciate it.”

Plant operators are “really excellent people,” Larsen said. “They're a huge contributor to this public health initiative. And so I'm just really glad to be working with them and they've been great so far.”

Clearly, utilities are doing something right. But for those that want to get ahead of the game as wastewater testing expands in the coming years, the professors had some tips:

Equipment and Staffing

Some water utilities have absorbed extra epidemiological sampling requirements with ease. But others — especially rural and smaller plants — don’t have the equipment, time, or staff to spare, Naughton said.

Some that can only do a grab sample once per day have tried to time it with the morning flush to get the most data, Naughton said. But the “gold standard” of 24-hour composite sampling yields more complete data, Larsen said.

Naughton recommended small utilities keep an eye out for programs like the one from the CDC and Water Environment Federation (WEF) where they could apply for free autosamplers.

Smaller plants will also have more difficulty hiring enough people to carry out the sampling, then shipping it off, Larsen said.

Lots of government grants are going to labs for analysis — but more cash should be flowing to utilities to hire more staff to carry out the increased sampling load, Naughton said. Public health is “chronically underfunded,” Larsen said, adding that any increased burden shouldn’t come out of utilities’ budgets.

Coordination With Researchers

Scientists analyzing wastewater samples rely on utilities’ knowledge of their systems, the experts said. Things like the amount of industrial waste the facility processes, or how much salt is used on the roads in winter can make a big difference to sampling, Naughton said.

“So when we see things that are weird with the data, they can be like, ‘Oh, that clarifier went offline then, or we had this industrial flow,’” she said.

Developing those relationships is critical to a smooth working partnership, Larsen said.

“Know who the epidemiologists are and know who the environmental epidemiologists are,” he said.

Naughton added that she invites utilities she works with to meetings so they can ask questions and engage with public health departments.

Data Privacy

Health data is a sensitive topic, and utilities need to make sure security is top-of-mind.

As the population sample decreases, the privacy risk increases, Larsen said. Sampling for COVID-19 and other illnesses at a city level can’t put any individuals’ or groups’ data at risk. But what data is made public from sampling at smaller levels must be considered thoughtfully, the experts said. Generally, sampling becomes a data privacy risk at under 3,000 people, Naughton said.

“It's public information that public money is going towards… so you should see that data. But we do need to be sensitive to how that data is shared and what it's used for, and if it's targeting communities more than helping communities,” she said.

Larsen recommended reading the World Health Organization’s guidelines on public health surveillance. Arizona State University has also studied the field’s privacy implications.

And if local public health units opt to sample for drugs, Naughton said it should be to find out which neighbourhoods need more support — not to increase incarceration or otherwise punish communities.

Homework

Fortunately, there’s lots of reading on wastewater-based epidemiology for utilities to do — potentially an “overwhelming” amount, Naughton said.

She pointed to resources from the Canadian Water Network as a great starting point. Videos like the WEF’s that show what happens to samples can be helpful for utilities as well, she said.

“Our plants love seeing the data, and getting it back, and (knowing) that it's being used for something,” she said.

Better Data Management Can Help Utilities Better Prepare for Wastewater Epidemiology

Wastewater epidemiology requires sampling large amounts of data. Klir's sampling module allows you to stay on top of it all, so you can be ready when researchers come knocking.

"I heard only people with lawn irrigation have problems with backflow."

“How do I know this backflow assembly is really necessary?”

“Okay, so what’s the least expensive assembly I can buy?”

Sound familiar?

Water suppliers and backflow inspectors hear these questions from customers all the time.

While it makes sense that customers might have some questions about backflow, an uninformed or uncooperative customer can also create problems.

• They could balk at the price of a new device, delaying installation and creating administrative and compliance headaches.
• They might forget about inspections, leaving inspectors waiting at the door.
• They can ignore easy-to-fix hazards existing in their own plumbing system, increasing backflow risk in general.

The fact is that effective cross-connection control is just as much about technical challenges as it is about nurturing good relationships with customers and ensuring they understand their responsibilities and obligations.

To do that, water suppliers have to be creative. Here are three successful approaches we’ve seen, and how they can help your backflow prevention program succeed.

1. Arm Yourself With Good Educational Materials

In addition to being a leader in backflow training and research, the USC Foundation for Cross-Connection Control and Hydraulic Research is an excellent starting point for water suppliers looking to raise awareness around backflow.

The foundation’s customizable brochures, video guides and slideshows all do a great job of explaining concepts like backflow, back siphonage and backpressure to a non-specialist audience, providing you with everything you need to start an awareness campaign in your community.

The American Backflow Prevention Association’s educational materials are another excellent resource, and its Buster Backflow series even provides younger readers with an entry point into the subject.

If you're keen on producing your own materials, the backflow incident case histories published by the AWWA and the EPA can also be invaluable. These vivid, at times jarring incident reports aren't shy with the details and include reported cases involving:

• Gallons of seawater entering the soda fountains at a fast food restaurant
• Propane entering a town’s water system
• Blood coming out of a Michigan hospital’s drinking fountains

Chapter 2 of the EPA’s official Cross-Connection Control Manual (PDF) includes more than a dozen of these stories, each of which do a great job of communicating the dangers of backflow.

Prevent Backflow With Better Data Management

Interested in learning more about how better data management can help you run a more effective cross-connection control program? Download the guide and book a demo of the Klir backflow module today.

2. Set Testers and Inspectors up for Success

While they might not have the time to educate every single last customer, testers and inspectors can certainly help—provided you give them the right tools.

In addition to arming them with good information and literature they can leave with the customer, ensuring inspectors have access to accurate and up-to-date information about your cross-connection control program is the best way to set them up for success.

That includes:

• Ensuring testers are clear on each customer's responsibilities.
• Ensuring individual customer information is recorded properly and up to date to prevent confusion or delays during the inspection.
• Informing inspectors of any risks or hazards that are specific to that customer.

One way to do this is to keep all backflow and cross-connection control-related data together in one system that inspectors can access themselves, eliminating the need for time-consuming paperwork chasing.

3. Cut Down On Administrative Work

If having a good backflow brochure and taking care of your inspectors is important, educating and engaging with community members directly is essential.

But building relationships with local businesses, institutions and other important water users in your community can be difficult when you're stuck in the office taking care of administrative work.

Cross-connection data management software like Klir can help free up some of that time by:

Automating Away Repetitive Work

Klir automates a lot of the busywork involved in maintaining asset inventories, creating inspection schedules and capturing cross-connection data in general. If you're currently using spreadsheets or software that wasn't built specifically for backflow, switching to Klir could save you hours of work per week.

Simplifying Inspections

Backflow professionals often tell us how difficult it can be to get backflow data in and out of a water supplier’s system. Customer files can be difficult to access, and inspection reports can be time-consuming to fill out.

A dedicated backflow data management solution like Klir solves these problems by bringing all backflow data into one accessible, easy to use system, giving inspectors access to all of the information and forms they need in a web-based app.

Making Your System Self-Serve

No one likes getting sternly-worded inspection reminders or water shutoff warnings. Making cross-connection control a self-serve process is one way around this, which is why we’re so excited about Klir’s community module, which will soon allow users to do exactly that.

Take Control of Your Cross-Connection Data With Klir

Klir’s backflow module helps utilities schedule, organize, and run effective cross-connection control programs, making it easier than ever to manage backflow data with powerful dashboards, asset mapping and project management automation. Learn more and book a demo today.

Municipalities and utilities have turned to electronic reporting tools (ERTs) to streamline, consolidate and automate their water and wastewater data processes for decades.

These tools cut down on lost or duplicate data, provide users with automated alerts, and generally make sampling a much less painful and time-consuming process.

At the same time, water managers know that sampling is just one part of the equation.

No part of a successful water management operation can function in isolation from another—but that’s also precisely what happens when utilities need a different application to manage each aspect of the water process, whether it be water quality or effluent monitoring, permitting, or inspections.

Adopting a truly unified approach to water management might be the only way that municipalities and utilities can protect themselves from another problem: too many tools.

To illustrate how, we’re going to compare two different water sampling solutions today:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based water management platform—and more specifically Klir’s sampling capabilities, which delivering fast and up to date sampling and water quality results to decision makers at water and wastewater utilities.

WaterTrax

An electronic reporting tool provided by Aquatic Informatics.

Klir Water Management Software: A Quick Intro

Until recently, the information that operators and managers at water utilities needed to do their jobs was fragmented, dispersed across numerous systems, incomplete, or otherwise difficult to access.

Launched in 2018, Klir is the first system to bring these disparate functions together into one complete SaaS based software suite.

Klir's Drinking Water Management platform allows water quality teams to manage monitoring plans and sampling outcomes against relevant legislation and regulations such as the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Meanwhile, Klir's Wastewater Management Platform allows treatment plant operators to manage effluent reporting and DMR reports, so they can stay compliant with key regulation such as NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System).

Instead of relying on a mishmash of different systems and software, Klir brings the entire team onto one platform and pulls in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for sampling activities utility-wide.

This allows operators to

• See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.
• Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, to generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.
• Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs, operational limits, and numerous other types of limits will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

WaterTrax: A Brief Overview

WaterTrax was first launched in 2002 with the goal of helping utilities and municipalities detect adverse water quality events earlier and faster, offering quick access to current and historical data, automatic alerts, and a consolidated repository for lab data, all in a web-based system that didn’t require and special hardware or software to run.

Today WaterTrax’s focus is water and wastewater management, and the typical user will use the tool to do three things: set up a sampling schedule, set up their water infrastructure, and begin consuming data from labs and field samples.

In 2017, WaterTrax was acquired by Vancouver’s Aquatic Informatics company, where it exists alongside a family of applications purpose-built for different aspects of the water management process, including:

1. Aquarius Samples, an environmental lab and field sample data production tool.
2. Linko, an Industrial Pretreatment and FOG solution.
3. Tokay, a backflow prevention and cross-connection control tool.

One Platform vs. a Family of Separate Apps

While WaterTrax and the Klir sampling module might have a lot of overlap, the biggest difference between the two is Klir’s unified platform approach to water, as opposed to Aquatic Informatics’ à la carte approach.

While Klir users can move seamlessly from managing water and wastewater processes to other key processes such as permitting, inspections, asset management, and backflow or cross-connections, WaterTrax users are forced to switch to a different Aquatic Informatics application every time.

The Klir system unifies sampling and water monitoring alongside permitting, inspections, asset management, and backflow or cross-connections. This allows utilities to:

Break Down Silos

Reducing contradictory data, enabling constant information sharing across departments and teams, and reducing knowledge-loss during employee retirements or absences.

Spend Less time on Implementation

Klir allows utilities to train multiple teams on a single system and manage multiple process in one central software system.

Work With a Single Source of Truth

As your organization grows and its data needs increase, your ability to create and work from a single point of truth will become increasingly important.

The Klir Water Management Platform in Action

In addition to the benefits of Klir’s platform approach, there are also specific areas where Klir allows utilities to manage sampling and water quality outcomes with ease:

1. Powerful Monitoring Plans and Sample Scheduling

Klir unifies monitoring plans and sample scheduling across the utility, and making those functions available across working groups (whether it be compliance, water quality, operations, or treatment facilities).

Klir is a SaaS-based program that can be securely accessed on any device, anywhere, and is designed with an intuitive user interface so that any delegated user in your organization can set up their monitoring plan, select what they want to monitor against, track sampling outcomes against relevant parameters, and provision their plan with a set of recurring tasks.

2. Better Lab Data Processing

Klir currently provides users with numerous ways of entering data into the system, including:

• Manual frontend data entry
• Frontend data import through the import tool
• SCADA import
• SFTP file transfers
• Sample results APIs (future)

Klir is also developing a sampling API that will expand even further on users’ ability to get data into the Klir system easily.

3. Powerful Customization and Automation Functions

With automatic alerts and notifications triggered by sampling processes, Klir allows operators to create custom rules for almost any process or parameter in their water data management system, making it a powerful automation tool.

Klir vs. WaterTrax: Feature-by-Feature

4. It’s Built for Maximum Accessibility

Unlike most legacy water systems, Klir focuses on providing a user-friendly, intuitive and accessible experience that is designed to be used by anyone within the utility, regardless of experience. Klir makes your systems more transparent, not less, making it the clear choice for readability and ease of use out of the box.

5. One Product, One Vision

Klir is unique among competing water management platforms which because it was built as a unified water management solution from the ground up.

This means Klir allows users to avoid the pitfalls commonly associated with legacy software suites—including duplicate data, overlapping processes, multiple licenses, uneven product development, and lack of cross-app integration—while ensuring that your team can be trained and brought onto a single, unified system.

6. Collaboration and Task Management Tools

Klir allows teams to manage all of their tasks in-app, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration and project management across the organization.

Meanwhile, legacy water management systems often don’t include internal collaboration or communications tools, forcing teams to come up with their own off-platform solutions (usually email).

Whether it’s cross connection control, industrial pretreatment, or sampling, tracking regulatory compliance across the different programs and departments at a water and wastewater utility can be a massive undertaking.

Operators need access to a variety of data points to budget, plan for, and manage these challenges effectively, and many have turned to dedicated compliance tracking software to fill the gap.

While these tools are a step up from spreadsheets and post-it notes of the past, they aren’t perfect. Operators looking for a single tool to manage all aspects of compliance might find some of them outdated or limited in functionality.

Today we’re going to explore these tradeoffs by comparing two separate compliance tracking solutions:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based operating system for drinking water & wastewater utilities—and more. Klir’s inspection tools help utilities run more effective backflow, FOG and industrial pretreatment programs while cutting down on administration and record-keeping work.

SwiftComply

A compliance management tool offering backflow prevention, FOG management, and industrial pretreatment solutions.

Klir: A Quick Intro

Launched in 2018, Klir is an all-in-one operating system for drinking water & wastewater that brings your entire team onto one platform, pulling in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for compliance utility-wide. This allows operators to:

Work With Trends

See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.

Use Automation

Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, and generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.

Receive Alerts

Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs and non-compliance will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

SwiftComply: A Quick Intro

Launched in 2016, SwiftComply began as a tool to help utilities manage FOG programs. In 2019, the company acquired XC2, a specialized backflow program management software vendor, which it began to replace with a newer updated tool called SwiftComply Backflow.

Today SwiftComply offers modules for FOG, backflow, and industrial pretreatment, stormwater, and customer management, building on its strengths in FOG and pretreatment and offering users powerful features like real-time compliance data monitoring.

Klir vs. SwiftComply: Which One Is Right for You?

SwiftComply and Klir have a lot of overlap, but there are four big differences between them that are worth keeping in mind when considering whether they’re the right fit for your operation: scope, collaboration, pricing, and data ownership.

1. One Tool For Everything

SwiftComply might work well if you already use it to manage your cross connection control data, and it might also work if you’re a solo operator looking for a tool dedicated to managing your backflow program alone.

But if you’re looking for a truly all-encompassing tool that plugs into the rest of your operation—including sampling, customer management, resource recovery and more—you might consider using a tool like Klir instead.

Klir’s commitment to building one unified platform for water utility management means it avoids the pitfalls commonly associated with legacy software suites—including duplicate data, overlapping processes, multiple licenses, uneven product development, and lack of cross-app integration—while ensuring that your team can be trained and brought onto a single, unified system.

2. Pricing Tailored For Growth

Another major difference between SwiftComply and Klir is pricing: the former follows a usage-based pricing model, whereas Klir offers personalized pricing based on a utility’s needs.

To most operators new to water data management software, a tool like SwiftComply can seem as good as “free.” There are no flat licensing costs, and if a utility does not upload any data to Swiftcomply, they don’t pay anything.

But while the financial barrier to entry might be low, usage based pricing can also work against you, discouraging use of the tool in general.

Going with a predictable, tailored fee like Klir’s means that you can keep a rapidly growing population’s drinking water safe without the surprise of a massive bill.

Klir focuses on enabling the utility to grow with its city, rather than penalizing it. If you’re keen on software that is as easy to use as it is to budget for, consider Klir.

3. Collaboration

SwiftComply provides users real-time data to monitor compliance. But like other legacy systems, it doesn’t include internal collaboration or communications tools, forcing teams to come up with their own off-platform solutions (usually email).

If you’re looking for a tool that does more than just monitoring, especially project management and other automation-enabled collaboration tasks, you should consider Klir instead.

Klir merges multiple data sources and processes into a single collaborative platform and paves the way for a more proactive, collaborative, and resilient water management program. Directors can independently access every aspect of the water management data—including compliance and sampling–with an easy-to-use executive dash dashboard, freeing-up the time of their subordinates and empowering them to get the data they need in an instant.

Klir allows teams to manage all of their tasks within the app, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration and project management across the organization.

4. Privacy and Data Ownership

As utilities move more of their data from physical logbooks, spreadsheets and calendars into the digital sphere, who exactly has access to—or even outright owns—that data can become murkier.

One big concern for utilities who work with private inspectors and contractors on functions like  backflow is ownership over inspection data. With SwiftComply, third-party inspectors own the data that they enter into the system. With Klir, the utility has full ownership of inspector data.

Conclusion

Despite SwiftComply’s strengths in cross connection and FOG program management, Klir’s all-encompassing, user-friendly approach to data management makes it the clear winner for utilities looking to manage all of their programs out of one system.

1. Klir’s focus on creating a single source of truth for all of your utility’s programs—from sampling and compliance to industrial pretreatment—provides program managers with the data and confidence they need to make important operational decisions.
2. Klir’s straightforward pricing structure makes it easier to budget and doesn’t penalize users for increased usage.
3. Klir’s focus on project management and in-app communication also makes it the clear choice for utilities and programs looking for a single tool to encompass all aspects of program management.

Operations And Compliance Management For Everyone

Looking for a simple, straightforward compliance tracking tool that you can use straight out of the box? Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

For utilities managing multiple programs like drinking and wastewater, cross connection control, and industrial pretreatment, bringing operational and compliance data from across the organization into one environment can be a big undertaking.

Over the years, numerous engineering, IT consulting, and software companies have developed tools to help utilities manage this process. But while they might be a step up from paper and spreadsheet-based data management, not all operational and compliance management software is created equal.

Today we’re going to explore some of these differences by comparing two platforms:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based operating system for water & wastewater utilities. Klir pulls compliance, sampling, reporting and more into an easy to use dashboard, cutting down on administration and record-keeping work while providing a level of organization-wide visibility unmatched by other systems.

SAMS

An operations and compliance management suite from NJBSoft built for managing water, wastewater, industrial pretreatment, backflow, stormwater, air quality and asset management programs.

Klir: A Quick Intro

Until recently, the information that operators and managers at water utilities needed to do their jobs was fragmented, dispersed across numerous systems, incomplete, or otherwise difficult to access.

Launched in 2018, Klir is the first system to bring these disparate functions together into one complete, all-in-one operating system (OS) for water & wastewater utilities.

Instead of relying on a mishmash of different systems and software, Klir brings the entire team onto one platform and pulls in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for sampling activities utility-wide.

This allows operators to:

Work With Trends

See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.

Use Automation

Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, and generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.

Receive Alerts

Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs and non-compliance will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

SAMS: A Quick Intro

Launched in 2009, NJBSoft’s Sampling and Monitoring System (SAMS) began as an integrated operations and compliance solution for the Civil, Environmental and Municipal Engineering sector.

Today, the company offers seven separate ‘SAMS’ covering different aspects of water utility data management, including:

• Compliance and permit management for drinking and wastewater utilities (SAMS Water and SAMS Wastewater)
• Suites for managing industrial pretreatment (SAMS IPP), cross connection control (SAMS Cross Connection) and stormwater (SAMS Stormwater) programs
• A tool for managing Clean Air Act and other air quality compliance (SAMS Air Quality)
• A new asset management module (SAMS Asset Management)

Klir vs. SAMS: Which One Is Right for You?

While SAMS and Klir might have a lot of overlap, there are three major differences that set the two platforms apart: degree of customizability vs. configurability, how each platform handles data visualization, and collaboration tools. Here’s what each of them means for your utility:

1. Customizability vs. Configurability

Generally speaking, users get the most out of NJBSoft’s SAMS by customizing and changing the tool to fit their specific situation.

Organizations that have substantial IT and computer engineering resources have the ability to make code-level changes to SAMS, which can result in a tool that is closely tailored to a specific utility or department’s data management needs and situation.

Klir’s “click not code” approach to configurability, on the other hand, means that any user can automate processes and manage tasks without the steep learning curve.

While customizable software might offer users a more tailored approach, it’s also more expensive, both from a financial and human resources perspective.

When budgets get tight, the last thing your department needs is to sink thousands of dollars into hiring engineers to customize software you’ve already paid for. Meanwhile, configurable software is cheaper to adapt to your specific needs, and cheaper to maintain.

2. Data Visualization

We can make a similar comparison between the two platforms when it comes to another important function: pulling and synthesizing large amounts of operational and compliance data into easy-to-understand dashboards and reports.

While both platforms offer data visualization, the SAMS platform requires complex, time-consuming queries to pull operational data into dashboards.

Klir’s single-click reporting and dashboard capabilities, on the other hand, are focused on saving time and being as user-friendly as possible. There’s no need for an experienced ‘power user’ to immediately start getting value out of Klir. Powerful out-of-the-box dashboards make data more digestible for everyone, whether you’re a seasoned Klir user or using the platform for the first time.

Pulling data into reports is a similarly painless process. With a single click, operators can generate compliance reports that are instantly ready for submission to state and local regulators.

Overall, Klir’s fully configurable platform offers a simple yet comprehensive solution for all users to set up their dashboards, notifications, and forms, making it easy to visualize important information such as inspection outcomes, compliance status, and sampling results at a glance.

3. Collaboration

SAMS internal collaboration and communications tools are limited, forcing teams to handle most project management work outside of the app. If you’re looking for a tool that prioritizes project management functionality and other automation-enabled collaboration tasks, you should consider Klir instead.

Klir provides a single collaborative platform that paves the way for more proactive, collaborative programs, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration and project management across the organization.

Conclusion

While SAMS’ operations and compliance management tools might meet the needs of power users with substantial IT and engineering resources, Klir’s out-of-the-box, user-friendly approach makes it the clear favorite for the average program manager.

1. Klir’s focus on configurability cuts down on the substantial time and effort users must invest in customizable platforms like SAMS.
2. Klir’s intuitive, user-friendly interface and query-free dashboard interface makes it the more powerful tool out-of-the-box. Users with little to no experience using the platform can immediately start creating data visualizations and generating reports for regulators.
3. Klir’s focus on project management and in-app communication also makes it the clear choice for utilities and programs looking for a single tool to encompass all aspects of program management.
4. Klir is committed to providing your utility with continued personalized support throughout your entire journey, including a dedicated Klir Customer Success Manager and a comprehensive change management plan to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Operations And Compliance Management For Everyone

Interested in learning how to get configurable dashboards without a computer science degree? Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and recordkeeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.

Whether it’s pathogens, PFAS, flood, drought, or a host of other factors, successful water management comes with a gauntlet of complex and interlinking challenges—and that list is only growing.

To tackle these issues, water and wastewater managers, operators and engineers need a steady stream of easy to access and up to date information related to planning, compliance, risk, sampling results, and numerous other data points. Enterprise and custom-built industrial automations systems have promised to provide exactly that, but haven’t always delivered.

Most operators today continue to work in water data management environments that are incomplete: crucial data remains siloed and underutilized, plant operators continue to struggle with sub-optimal conditions for planning, and adopting a data-based approach to water management continues to be a challenge.

To explore the tradeoffs and sticking points operators face when approaching these challenges, we’re going to look at two different systems today:

Klir

An all-in-one cloud-based operating system for water & wastewater utilities—and more. Klir’s sampling module focuses on delivering fast and up to date water quality results and analysis, and simplifying scheduling and reporting for water monitoring plans across the utility.

Hach WIMS

A water information management solution developed by the Hach Company to complement the company’s water quality testing instruments and processes.

Klir OS and the Klir Sampling Module: A Quick Intro

Until recently, the information that operators and managers at water utilities needed to do their jobs was fragmented, dispersed across numerous systems, incomplete, or otherwise difficult to access.

Launched in 2018, Klir is the first system to bring these disparate functions together into one complete, all-in-one operating system (OS) for water & wastewater utilities.

Instead of relying on a mishmash of different systems and software, Klir brings the entire team onto one platform and pulls in data from lab reports, LIMS, SCADA & GIS to create a single source of truth for sampling activities utility-wide.

This allows operators to:

Work With Trends

See trends across the entire water system—from sampling, to permitting, inspections & more—and make decisions with clarity and confidence.

Use Automation

Automate manual tasks and data analysis that were once tracked in Excel or Outlook, from scheduling sampling runs, to interpreting sampling results, and generating regulatory reports, eliminating 1+ days of admin work each week.

Receive Alerts

Have peace of mind knowing that Klir’s automatic alerts for MCLs and non-compliance will trigger in case anything ever goes wrong, and feel confident that every sample has been completed on time.

Hach WIMS: A Quick Intro

Hach WIMS allows operators and managers to synthesize and analyze together water quality data using queries, charts and custom analytics. Think of it as a powerful version of Excel, custom-built for water.

Although Hach WIMS has been a mainstay in the water industry, it hasn’t received any major overhauls since it was originally introduced, making it very much a product of its time. While it’s helpful for users focused on managing sampling results & interpreting water quality data, it lacks some of the broader functionalities users have come to expect from newer cloud-based software.

Klir vs. Hach: Which One is Right for You?

There are a few key factors that operators need to keep in mind when choosing a system that is right for them. We’ll break them down for you below and sort them into two sections: one for operators that would be better off choosing Klir, and one for operators who might benefit from sticking to Hach.

Klir is an all-in-one system that captures all data for compliance with regulatory and local limits, and is built to handle:

• Monitoring plan creation & management
• Sample scheduling
• SCADA & LIMS import / review
• Rule validation
• Exceedance warnings
• Reporting
• Task management
• Live data entry for field sampling

Hach WIMS, on the other hand, is meant to support engineers during their daily operations and is built to handle:

• Sampling scheduling
• SCADA & LIMS import / review
• Reporting
• Equipment maintenance support
• Plant operational workflows

Reasons to choose Klir​

1. It’s a Truly Comprehensive System

It used to be that if you wanted a truly comprehensive, all-encompassing view of your organization, you had to wait for an annual report. Klir has changed that by providing operators with a complete view of the organization, allowing them to:

• Know they’re compliant, rather than assume it
• Consult a single dashboard of relevant internal and regulatory compliance when they log-in
• Avoid hunting for information across segments of data in different systems

2. It’s Bulletproof

Cybersecurity is one of the biggest threats for utilities, but these attacks often rely on very boring, unremarkable vulnerabilities. Many are simply the result of over-reliance on outdated software on local devices, or trying to integrate disparate software and systems.

IT leaders within utilities are increasingly setting mandates to reduce the complexity of their stack and are demanding higher security for the applications they choose to keep onboard. Klir provides customers with a little to no integration-required platform that operates with military-grade security.

Klir is cloud-based and can be securely accessed from any device, anywhere, offering your employees and IT managers a safe, secure and bulletproof environment to work in.

3. Maximum Accessibility

Klir focuses on providing a user-friendly, intuitive and accessible experience that is designed to be accessed and used by anyone within the utility, regardless of experience. No need to write queries or build custom dashboards: Klir makes your systems more transparent, rather than less.

Hach and other legacy industrial automation systems are built with the expert user in mind. Intuitive UI, accessibility and readability aren’t a priority in the design of these systems, which means that only water quality experts with advanced analytics knowledge and experience writing queries can get full value out of the system.

4. Built for Focused Collaboration and Task Management

Hach and other legacy systems usually don’t include internal collaboration or communications tools, forcing teams to come up with their own off-platform solutions (usually email).

While Hach focuses primarily on data management and manipulation, Klir allows teams to manage all of their tasks in-app, offering an internal chat and reply functionality, user tagging, and commenting within individual tasks, turning the platform into a single channel for collaboration across the organization.

5. Build Institutional Knowledge Instead of Individual Knowledge

Systems that require specialized expert knowledge often struggle with information ‘siloing’: when one person is out of the office or retires, they often leave a big information gap that can leave work at a standstill.

Klir fixes this problem by offering users a single source of truth that is accessible to everyone in the organization, allowing utilities to be more nimble and responsive.

Reasons Why You Might Choose Hach​

While Klir might be the clear choice for operators and managers looking for an all-in-one solution to all of their water information management needs, you might be better sticking with Hach in the following cases:

1. You Prefer a More Hands-On Approach to Analytics

Klir customers appreciate the simplicity of the tool and the ability it gives them to simply get on with their workday: from task management to automated analytics.

Hach comes with a much more customizable analytics toolbox that involves a lot more up-front work. Building your own dashboard can be a challenge, but once you do, the customizability Hach offers starts to pay off down the road with super-granular insight.

All this is to say, if you’d prefer a system that focuses primarily on data integration and custom analyses on that data, you might prefer Hach.

• Know they’re compliant, rather than assume it
• Consult a single dashboard of relevant internal and regulatory compliance when they log-in
• Avoid hunting for information across segments of data in different systems

2. You're Focused on LIMS Integration and Custom Analytics

Hach is super focused on allowing users to build detailed and robust dashboards that are deeply customizable and data-driven.

If you’re less focused on the overall operations of your facility and are focused on choosing a system that best integrates with your existing laboratory information management system (LIMS) and provides this level of customization, Hach might also fit the bill.

How Klir Can Help

Klir is a single, unified operating system for water, pulling every aspect of wastewater management—including compliance, sampling and more—into an easy to use dashboard. Learn more about how Klir can cut down on administration and record-keeping work, create new opportunities for collaboration, and provide a level of system-wide visibility unmatched by other water data management systems.