Jefferson Parish is forging ahead with plans to upgrade nearly every water meter in the parish with smart technology, despite accusations that its process for selecting a contractor for the lucrative endeavor favored a single vendor, limiting competition, and potentially violating state law.
The Parish Council voted unanimously Wednesday to give Pedal Valves, Inc. the opportunity to negotiate a contract to install more than 150,000 residential and commercial water meters and build out the infrastructure that will allow the parish to read those meters remotely.
Pedal Valves, a Luling-based metering solutions firm, was the only vendor to submit a complete proposal to the parish. It estimated the project would cost $116 million, though that number could change as part of contract negotiations.
Jefferson Parish’s process for selecting a firm varied significantly from that of the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, which began installing the new metering technology in Orleans Parish last year.
While Jefferson Parish received just one competitive proposal, the Sewerage & Water Board received seven, according to public records.
The S&WB wrote its request for proposals to get “as many … bidders as possible,” Rebecca Johnsey, a senior engineering division manager at the agency, told officials at a May 2022 meeting.
Jefferson Parish, meanwhile, put far more restrictions on the type of technology it would accept.
In separate letters sent to Jefferson Parish in April, at least two vendors said they had hoped to bid on the work but couldn’t because the parish’s request for proposals was too narrow.
They pointed to a requirement that the meters communicate via a certain radio frequency that’s between 900-950 megahertz and licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.
That radio frequency range “is exclusively operated by only a single vendor to the exclusion of all competition,” lawyers for the vendor Core & Main wrote in their letter to the parish.
Another vendor, Aclara Technologies, predicted that Jefferson Parish would receive “only one qualified bid,” arguing that the “process established by the Parish is non-competitive and will negatively impact residents for what will be an important initiative and large financial investment.”
Jefferson Parish Public Works Director Mark Drewes, in an interview last month, defended the request for proposals, arguing that “anyone can apply” to the FCC for a license to operate within the frequency specified.
The parish decided to require the radio frequency for several reasons, Drewes said. For one, it has the most powerful signal, allowing the parish to locate its data collection devices on parish-owned water towers. Weaker signals would require the parish to install and operate repeaters in the field, creating more “points for failures,” he said.
Another factor was security, Drewes said. With unlicensed radio frequencies, there are opportunities for interference, he said. And with cellular options, the parish would have no control when cell towers go down. Also, as cellular technology advances, the meter technology could become obsolete, he said.
“We didn’t just pull stuff out of the air. We did our due diligence. We did a study that gave us all the pros and cons,” Drewes said.
The S&WB put no restrictions on the type of communication technology it would accept and ultimately selected Aqua-Metric to oversee the installation of 140,000 meters under a contract worth $67 million. As part of its proposal to Jefferson Parish, Pedal Valves partnered with Aqua-Metric.
In June, lawyers for Core & Main sent a letter to Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill arguing that Jefferson Parish’s request for proposal process was “anti-competitive and unlawful.”
A spokesperson for Murrill’s office said the letter from Core & Main wasn’t received by certified mail, therefore it wasn’t treated as a public bid law complaint and wasn’t investigated.
Asked ahead of Wednesday’s vote whether they would request an opinion from Murrill’s office on the legality of the solicitation, Parish Council members, citing the potential for litigation, deferred to the Parish Attorney Toni Hurley. A spokesperson for Hurley said the parish had not requested a formal opinion.
