City of Binghamton is exploring water meter billing system upgrades. These students helped move the project forward

Imagine tracking your water usage in real time rather than waiting for a bill to arrive and surprise you with the latest drain on your bank account. 

With a click on your phone, you could catch potential leaks much sooner and save money each year. It sounds like a great idea, but in the City of Binghamton, with some 14,850 residential and commercial water meters, is it feasible?

Thanks to diligent research by six Binghamton University students – Hannah Almanzar, Milo Benedek, Kesang Bhuming, Blake Libert, Lombe Mwambwa, and Ethan Tong – through a new credit-bearing internship course offered by the University’s Fleishman Career Center, such an upgrade could be possible with help from grant funding and without overhauling existing infrastructure, and its efficiency could help reduce municipal costs. 

City officials have been exploring upgrading the municipal water meter system’s billing operations to an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system, but allocating sufficient resources to investigate the possibility has been an obstacle. If implemented, the fully automated, two-way communication network could connect digital smart meters to a central utility database, allowing users to view daily usage and set alert thresholds through online portals. 

Mwambwa, a senior politics, philosophy, and law major, described the work as an ideal way to build her skills in navigating the complex world of policymaking. She aspires to a career in international relations.

“This has proven to be a very eye-opening experience. Seeing us change from one policy to another or from one system to another really does take time, and your funding opportunities sometimes change along the way. So, in some respects, it can feel like a gamble,” Mwambwa said. “The advantage we had was that we were set up almost like a consultancy group independent of the City of Binghamton, so we could focus on the research and determine what their options look like. That’s the kind of work I want to explore further, because of what I learned in this internship.”

Making an impact beyond Binghamton's campus

Some of the students’ recommendations to the City of Binghamton included:

• replacing mechanical meters with ultrasonic ones, starting with commercial/high-use accounts, and using a mix of fixed network gateways (connecting a local network or fixed smart device to a wider external network or the internet) and cellular endpoints to reduce overlap
• transitioning to AMI equipment using a provider the city already uses, which would reduce implementation time, lower training requirements, and ensure compatibility with existing infrastructure
• apply for grants through the Green Innovation Grant Program and the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, using data on water loss, current labor and vehicle costs, and information about billing disputes

Mayor Jared Kraham said the students provided a “very clear-cut” outline that will help the city determine how to move forward with the project.

“Binghamton University is a world-class academic institution filled with students engaged not only with campus and civic life, but with a mindset to improve the world around them,” Kraham said. “Finding ways to work together, to tap into that talent, not only shows these students how to put their skills to use solving very real-world problems, but also allows the city’s water users to benefit from their in-depth analysis on an important project that could positively affect all of them.”

Student projects like this help reinforce goals outlined in the University's new strategic plan, such as confronting important industrial and societal challenges and identifying opportunities for the University to collaborate with local partner organizations, schools, industries, and nonprofits to address their needs within the region and state.

Benedek, a senior geography student with an eye on a career in urban planning, embraced the feasibility study as an opportunity to explore how his interests could be applied in a multidisciplinary setting. Experiences like these are also why Binghamton is such a strong training ground, he added, because of the many opportunities students can take advantage of to do meaningful work in the community.

“In school, we’re working on hypotheticals, but this is so much more fulfilling because we’re handling a real problem that local government is trying to address. Seeing how an organization operates day to day has been really valuable,” Benedek said. “The work we’ve done also taps into one of the reasons I was drawn to geography, because the data you’re working with can also involve different disciplines. In the urban planning sense, it’s an extension of my other interests in finance and economics.”

For Almanzar, an economics major, one of the biggest lessons was understanding the importance of being dependable and accountable when working with a team toward a shared goal. 

“Before this experience, I understood budgeting and cost analysis from more of an academic perspective, but this project helped me put those concepts into a more realistic context. I was able to see how different costs can impact decisions and how important it is to carefully evaluate a budget when planning a project,” Almanzar said. “I especially enjoyed having the opportunity to work alongside other Binghamton students, as it helped me feel more connected to the University and its community.”

Building partnerships, gaining new skills

The team was among 71 Binghamton students who participated in Fleishman’s university-wide credit-bearing internship program (CDCI) at various sites over the summer. Last year, 442 students also gained CDCI internship credit during the academic year. 

Fleishman offers four classes under the CDCI program. One focuses on career exploration; another is a regular, long-standing internship course; a third is a senior-level course preparing for life after college; and now there is a new project-based internship course in which students partner with an external organization.

Kelli Smith, assistant vice president for student success, said the program offers a creative alternative for students to gain needed experience and build networking contacts. It also assists students with challenging schedules, such as student-athletes. 

“Not only is this giving our students a chance to cultivate the skills employers seek, but they also learn from each other by bringing different skills to the table, just as they would in a real-world working environment,” Smith said. “We have incredible partners in our community who want to support our students and could benefit from their skills.”