Albuquerque Water Authority Enhances Leak Detection with Advanced Network Upgrade

The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority has upgraded its remote monitoring network, enabling real‑time visibility and faster response to leaks and other issues.

With more than 3,000 miles of pipeline serving over 650,000 customers, the authority manages 135 remote sites—including wells, tanks, and pump stations—each equipped with programmable logic controllers (PLCs) connected via a dedicated 900 MHz fixed‑wireless network back to the main control hub.

Kristen Sanders, Chief Information Security Officer, explained that the main treatment plant, built roughly 15 years ago, relied on outdated equipment that was essentially “shopping on eBay” when replacements were needed. The legacy fiber backbone that linked the remote sites to the plant had already surpassed its service life and required replacement.

Previously, remote sites were not on the IP network, so the former vendor, Televent, had to establish VPN connections to diagnose problems—often only when a failure was already in progress.

The new infrastructure introduces ruggedized Cisco IE3400 switches with embedded Cisco Cyber Vision software, integrating the remote PLCs into the SCADA network of sensors. This allows the in‑house IT team to monitor and troubleshoot equipment remotely, eliminating reliance on third‑party diagnostics.

“With the upgrade, we can spot leaks and other maintenance issues before they become critical failures,” said Sanders. “Earlier, there was no early warning—issues only became apparent when they stopped working, requiring on‑site inspections or packet captures.”

The upgrade also replaced decade‑old multi‑mode fiber with high‑bandwidth single‑mode fiber, improving signal integrity and capacity.

Network manager Jerry Monjaras, who led the project with in‑house staff and remote Cisco support, noted that the core switches now run on Cisco 9500s with 10 Gbps uplinks to a stack of IE5000s, replacing the outdated ASA 5520 security appliances and 2955 switches that reached end‑of‑support in 2018.

“My initial goal was to upgrade the backbone to gig fiber, but Cisco’s solution added Cyber Vision, exceeding my expectations,” Monjaras said.

The comprehensive overhaul—data center switches, new fiber, rugged field switches, and Cyber Vision software—provides significant benefits. Monjaras added, “Everything’s now managed almost entirely in‑house, which saves considerable downtime and costs.”

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