The Challenge

Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority (PWSA) has undertaken several key water programs that will set them up for LCRR success. The utilities has offered to replace lead service lines on private property where they are replacing the public-side lines at no direct cost to the customer.

The Project

To remain within LCR compliance standards as well as fulfill the promised customer requests, PWSA had to send and test more than 4,000 kits. It was vital to keep up with demand in reasonable time frames and to manage the program as it scaled rapidly, minimizing time-intensive tasks like driving kits and bringing them to a lab.

The Tactics

PWSA has employed 120Water’s digital sampling kits to execute sampling for these programs. Customer data is loaded into the software and triggers the mailing of test kits for consumer requests and post-construction sampling kits after Lead Service Line Replacement. Kits are delivered with clear instructions on how to fill them along with a pre-paid shipping label to return it to the lab, where results are then loaded into the 120Water software and delivered to relevant PWSA team members. 120Water handles mailing results letters to residents, ensuring an end-to-end automated process for the sampling.

The Results

The real-time water quality monitoring of lead data afforded by the kits and software combination ensured cost and time savings on the program. Testing turnaround time went down and the automation of testing saved thousands of hours of manual work, while the cost of kits went from $200/kit to $60. In addition, that data-informed infrastructure and remediation programs, setting PWSA up for success in conjunction with their Lead Service Line Replacement Program.