Lawsuit alleges Water District hid cost of failed water meter project

By Conor Shine

Tuesday, March 31, 2015 | 3:18 p.m.

The Las Vegas Valley Water District covered up the true cost of a failed high-tech water meter installation project that “never worked” and led to errors in customers’ bills, according to a lawsuit filed last week by a former employee.

The suit, filed by Lyndalou Bullard, alleges that the Water District hid the extent of the failure of its Firefly meter-reading technology by “lying to the public, the ratepayers, the media and its own management” to prevent scrutiny of its financial records.

“We take the assertions made by the former employee in this complaint very seriously,” Water District spokesman Bronson Mack said in a statement. “Since the early 2000s, we have employed automated meter reading (AMR) technology, which increases meter reading efficiency and is the standard for meter reading in the water industry. We utilize a couple different generations of AMR units.”

The Water District first contracted with the company Datamatic in 2002 to provide the Firefly technology.

The “smart meters” were supposed to let employees check customer water usage remotely without having to leave their vehicles and going into homeowners’ yards to do a visual inspection of the meter, according to the suit.

But Bullard alleges the technology, which cost $38 million, never worked properly, forcing the district to replace 385,000 of the Firefly meters at a cost of more than $500 each. The Datamatic contract was also awarded without following the district’s competitive bidding rules, the lawsuit alleges.

All told, the agency’s spending on the failed project was more than $76 million, according to the lawsuit.

Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak, who helps oversee the Las Vegas Valley Water District, said he asked “numerous questions” about the Firefly technology over the years and that they were answered to his satisfaction.

The issue arose when customers had errors on their bills caused by the meters not working properly, Sisolak said. “It was not held out to be a major issue,” he said.

The suit is the second filed against the Water District by a former employee this month.

Former Controller Randall Buie alleged in a separate lawsuit that he was forced out of his job after being pressured by his bosses to produce falsified accounting reports that hid losses from the operation of seven rural Nevada ranches owned by the district.

The ranches were acquired at a cost of about $80 million as part of long-term planning for a proposed multi-billion dollar project that would pump groundwater from rural Nevada to meet the Las Vegas Valley’s water needs.

Both Bullard and Buie are represented by attorney Matthew Callister.

Bullard’s allegation about the failed meter-reading technology is one of many she makes in her lawsuit, which deals mostly with her termination from the Water District during a round of layoffs in April.

Bullard, who worked at the district for 16 years, contends that her employment contract was violated when the district ignored her seniority by laying her off instead of less-tenured employees.

The suit alleges Bullard was terminated for her “detailed” knowledge of the district’s failed Firefly meter technology program and the improper accounting practices at the ranches.

The suit also alleges Bullard was retaliated against for bringing complaints about a hostile work environment against her manager and that her termination was, in part, due to her age, 58, in an attempt to prevent her from realizing her full retirement benefits.