The Hot Springs Board of Directors opted to address code compliance through administrative rather than legislative means Tuesday night, voting against looser regulations for testing sprinkler system backflow preventers.
The ordinance allowing analog testing was defeated 4-3, with Mayor Pat McCabe, District 4 Director Carroll Weatherford and District 5 Director Karen Garcia voting in the affirmative. The city plumbing code requires reduced pressure zone, or RPZ, valves be tested with a digital device that generates a printout of the results.
The ordinance defeated Tuesday night would have also allowed analog testing, a measure city officials said would improve compliance with the annual testing requirement. They said Hot Springs is the only city in the state that requires digital testing, telling city directors analog testing would lower costs by allowing more plumbers to provide the service.
The city said about 12 to 14 area plumbing companies can do digital testing, which plumbers who addressed the board Tuesday night said provides a greater degree of accountability than analog devices. Instead of results being transcribed by the tester, the digital test generates a printout that can't be manipulated or falsified, the plumbers said.
The ordinance was tabled at the board's Feb. 5 business meeting. A consensus to maintain digital only testing emerged from a meeting of plumbers and testing/repair technicians the city held March 7 to solicit input ahead of Tuesday night's vote, Assistant City Manager/City Clerk Lance Spicer told the board.
RPZs keep fertilizer and other nutrients from reaching the potable water supply when pressure in sprinkler lines is greater than pressure in the distribution system. The Arkansas Department of Health requires annual testing but doesn't specify it be done digitally.
An amendment to the ordinance was also defeated, keeping in place the requirement that testing and repair be done by state certified technicians working under a master plumber. The amendment would have allowed technicians to perform the service independent of a master plumber, putting the city on par with the state plumbing code and other municipalities that allow technicians to operate independently.
The amendment was defeated 5-2, with Weatherford and Garcia voting in the affirmative. McCabe told the board compliance measures proposed by the city's inspections department would be more effective than amending the plumbing code. Checking sprinkler billing data against testing data logged by the city is expected to bring the compliance rate to more than 90 percent, City Manager Bill Burrough told the board.
"We're taking a hard-line approach," he said. "We're going to notify all those we don't have current data on and make them aware we need it. And if we don't get it, we'll go to the next step and shut that meter off until we do get it."
Water running through a sprinkler meter is excluded from wastewater charges. Per city code, wastewater charges for usage exceeding 1,000 gallons a month are based on 88 percent of metered water consumption.
Brad Burkes, the city's backflow inspector, told the board keeping testing and repair technicians under the authority of master plumbers protects water quality. Removing them from the process makes monitoring 3,000 sprinkler meters over a 145 square mile service area impossible, he said.
"The plumbers help me tremendously," he said. "They're my eyes and ears. I'm afraid if we do away with the plumbers not being exclusive testers, then I will lose some of my eyes and ears that we have out there in the field. There's no possible way for me to cover all this area without their help."
Local on 03/21/2019