‘The numbers are just not connecting’
With 45% water loss, MUD board zeroes in on data, meters, billing software
7:51 p.m. April 14, 2026
DUANE CROSS
MCO Publisher•Editor
Metro Moore Utility Department is still losing about 45% of its water, and board members made clear Tuesday they are done tolerating vague explanations about where it is going. After investing heavily in new meters and other upgrades, the board noted the numbers still don't make sense, and the lack of a clear answer is concerning.
The board approved the $1.4 million meter project in April 2025, but the night’s dominant issue was the same one that has dogged the department for months: Why is so much water still disappearing from the system?
At that level, the problem is not just technical. It means lost revenue, invites regulatory scrutiny, and raises a harder public question after a major investment: What, exactly, did the spending fix?
Board member Greg Guinn boiled down the frustration in a single line: “We’ve spent the money, we’re still at 45 [percent].
“At what point do we stop talking about it? I’m frustrated about it. ... This is ridiculous.”
The Gap in the Numbers
The board kept returning to the same gap. Guinn said the system showed about 25.32 million gallons produced, while billing from roughly 2,771 meters reflected only about 12 million gallons. Board member Glen Thomas quickly added that the utility had also bought about 2 million gallons. However they were framed, the numbers pointed to the same problem: Too much water is still missing.
That gap pushed the discussion past a simple leak question and into a broader one: Is the water being lost in the field, or in the system that tracks it? Maybe the utility has leaks it still has not found. Maybe the readings are not coming back correctly. Maybe the billing software is translating them wrong. Or maybe the losses are spread across all three.
MUD Chairman Barry Posluszny put it plainly: “The numbers are just not connecting. After we do all of this work, that water is going somewhere.”
Utility manager Ronnie Cunningham pointed out that the system does not behave as if it were suffering a major, unseen break. “The tanks are full, pumps cutting off, staying off several hours like they’re supposed to,” he said. “So that tells me we don’t have any major leaks, if they’re only running 52 hertz.”
Less in the Ditch Than in the Data
The board was not ready to leave it there. If the utility is not acting like it has one huge break, Guinn suggested, then the problem may be less in the ditch than in the data. “Something's got to give at some point,” he added.
By that point, the discussion had shifted from pipes to numbers.
That suspicion landed hard on the meter system. Cunningham said some meters still need to be handled via drive-by collection rather than automatic reporting, and tree foliage has worsened some readings. “The drive-by, that’s the bad thing about them,” he said. “You don’t see the leaks like you do everything that pulls in [data] until you go and read them again the next month.” In some areas, he added, meters had to be switched back to drive-by settings because “the ones in the valley probably won’t never pick up.”
So the board moved toward something simpler: checking the numbers by hand. Posluszny suggested sending an employee into the field to compare actual meter readings against what the system reported. “Pick five homes and tell Kevin [Holder] to go read them. Physically read them with his eyes. Write it down.” The point, Posluszny said, was “just to see if they are reading correctly.”
The Software Question
The board did not stop at meters. It went after the software, too. “Maybe we need to get the billing people in here and tell them the numbers aren’t jiving,” Posluszny said.
Board member Charles "Boo" Johnston went further, saying that if the mainline meters are reading, no major leaks are showing, and the new meters themselves are generally accurate, “the only thing left is the billing system.”
Engineer Bryant Griffin offered that mismatches can happen when software reads the wrong unit or decimal place.
By then, the $1.4 million meter project looked less like a fix than proof of how little had changed. Griffin said modern ultrasonic meters “are going to read 99% and above correct,” shifting the focus away from the hardware itself and back toward reporting, billing, or hidden losses elsewhere in the system.
Better Numbers, Fewer Excuses
SCADA came up next for the same reason – the board wants better numbers. Cunningham said new equipment for the sewer plant had arrived, but it was still not installed. “We got our new SCADA stuff in for the sewer plant,” he said. “We just got to get down there to get it all hooked up.”
Other possibilities surfaced, but none explained the gap. Board members discussed contractor damage to water lines, especially with fiber internet work around the county. They discussed the limits of leak detection where lines cross creeks or run through hard-to-reach areas. They even raised the possibility of unmetered use, though no proof of that emerged in the discussion.
What the meeting produced was not an answer. It was a shorter list of places left to look.
