A Point Has a Purpose
First Utility District of Tipton County uses Bad Elf Flex and Esri ArcGIS to turn rural utility locations into emergency-ready records.
"A point has a purpose."
β Blaine Hazlerig
Senior Water
Plant Operator, First Utility District of Tipton County
A Map Built for Action
Blaine Hazlerig does not collect dots. He collects information that helps crews find buried meters, inspect gas valves, document hydrants, and respond during emergencies.
Hazlerig has worked at the First Utility District of Tipton County since 2014. The district provides water and gas service across a rural Tennessee territory, serves about 3,500 water customers, and maintains roughly 180 miles of water mains.
With a small team, the district needs maps that do more than show an approximate location. Each record must help the next employee find the asset, understand its condition, and decide what to do next.
That principle shapes Hazlerig's GIS program: A point has a purpose.
When "Close Enough" Is Not Close Enough
The district had GIS before Hazlerig began improving it, but staff did not fully trust the data.
π§ Data Nobody Trusted
Some older locations did not match field conditions, so employees often relied on long-tenured coworkers who simply knew where infrastructure was buried.
π A Slow Handoff
The workflow also moved slowly. Crews delivered field data to a separate GIS office, waited for someone to edit it, and sometimes received the updated map a week later.
π― Real-World Accuracy
Hazlerig wanted field updates to appear online while the work was still happening, with enough accuracy to return directly to a valve or meter without sweeping the area with a metal detector.
After comparing equipment, cost, and usability, the district selected the Bad Elf Flex. Hazlerig found the workflow simple: connect the receiver to a phone over Bluetooth, open Esri Field Maps, confirm the displayed accuracy, and collect the asset. The point then becomes available through ArcGIS Online. No week-long handoff. No cartographic waiting room.
The Field Workflow
Hazlerig combines the Bad Elf Flex, Esri Field Maps, ArcGIS Online, and Point One Navigation RTK corrections. The process follows a short path:
- Mount the Flex on a field pole.
- Connect it to the smartphone over Bluetooth.
- Open Field Maps and confirm the RTK connection.
- Check the reported accuracy.
- Collect the asset and its attributes.
- Send the update into the online GIS.
The receiver performs well across the district's spread-out rural territory. Hazlerig reported that even one of his weaker observations measured about 2.1 inches.
Some utilities may accept a valve location within three feet. Hazlerig does not. Three feet can still leave a crew searching through snow, mud, grass, or roadside cover. For critical water and gas assets, he wants the point as close to the real object as field conditions allow.
When Snow Turned Accuracy into Response Time
A severe cold-weather event showed why that precision matters. The district began losing large amounts of water from customer-side leaks. Meter readings helped staff identify affected accounts, but crews still had to find buried meters beneath the snow.
Earlier maps and phone positioning could bring employees into the general area. Crews might still need metal detectors or probing tools to find the exact meter. A verified Bad Elf position changes that response. An employee can connect the receiver, open the map, and walk directly toward the collected point.
The operational value is immediate:
- Crews find assets faster.
- Customers receive help sooner.
- The district limits water loss.
- Employees spend less time searching.
- Emergency response relies less on institutional memory.
Better accuracy on an ordinary day creates faster response on a difficult one.
Bring the Receiver Back
Hazlerig learned an important lesson during an early attempt to relocate a meter. He had collected the original point with the Bad Elf Flex, but returned with only his phone. The phone brought him near the meter, not directly to it.
Once he reconnected the Flex, the location marker moved with the field pole and guided him straight to the asset.
The lesson was simple: the phone displays the map, but the Bad Elf provides the precision.
Crews must bring the receiver when they need to navigate back to the original high-accuracy position. The receiver must also remain with the user because it records its own physical location. That small lesson became a permanent field practice.
What Lives Inside a Point
Hazlerig believes location is only the beginning of a useful GIS record. Each point should explain what the asset is, what condition it is in, how crews collected it, and what the district may need to do next.
π§ Gas Valves
A gas-valve record can show inspection status, valve condition, obstruction, material, size, tracer-wire presence, and whether crews can locate or operate it. The state requires annual gas-valve inspections, and dropdown menus inside the GIS give crews a consistent way to document those checks.
π§ Water Meters
A water-meter record can include the meter number, serial number, meter type, size, service-line material, property construction year, GNSS receiver used, and collection accuracy. Hazlerig also color-codes meter sizes on the map so staff can filter the database and answer operational questions without digging through paper records. Property age also supports lead and copper work by helping the district identify where older materials may require attention.
π Fire Hydrants
Hydrant records can include photographs, flushing dates, condition information, and repair needs. When a contractor completes annual hydrant flushing, Hazlerig imports the results into the GIS so employees can see when each hydrant was serviced and whether the contractor reported a problem.
The point becomes more than a symbol. It becomes a compact maintenance record.
Mapping Every Gas Service
Hazlerig's long-term goal is to locate every gas service line in the district. The system includes approximately 3,500 services. Many older lines follow routes that make little sense from the surface, and crews may know where a service begins and ends without knowing the exact path between the house and the main.
Hazlerig has started collecting those routes. He also plans to improve water-main locations, map new construction as crews install it, and verify crossings where water and gas infrastructure pass beneath roads.
The goal is not to finish the map once. It is to create a process that keeps the map accurate as the system changes.
From Blue Dots to Better Decisions
The district's original GIS largely showed where something might be. Hazlerig is building a system that shows where an asset is, what it is made of, what condition it is in, when crews inspected it, how accurately they collected it, and what the district should do next.
Bad Elf Flex supplies the high-accuracy location. Field Maps captures the operational details. ArcGIS Online shares the result. Together, they turn a rural utility map into a working field system.
Because at the First Utility District of Tipton County, a point does not simply mark a place. A point has a purpose.