Council approves three-year water-conservation pilot with Central Utah Water using Yapify platform

Murray City Council unanimously approved an interlocal cooperation agreement to join a three-year pilot with Central Utah Water that uses the Yapify analytics platform to identify leaks, target high-impact outdoor water usage and automate resident outreach.

Aaron Frisk introduced the proposal and said the platform integrates with Murray's Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and utility billing data to detect possible leaks, classify leak severity and configure automated customer notifications. "Murray City retains all control of messaging and data," Frisk said, and he emphasized that Yapify will only use the limited city data needed to perform services on the city's behalf.

Frisk said Central Utah Water will provide cost-share funding and the city's three-year share, after cost-share, would be about $12,795; however he noted the city has been approved for a Transparent Water Billing grant from the Division of Water Resources that will subsidize the remainder, making the pilot free to the city. Council members asked about privacy and vendor history; Frisk said Yapify is a private company that works exclusively with public entities, stores Murray data on a dedicated server, employs end-to-end encryption, and is subject to federal, state and local laws. He said Murray IT staff had met with Yapify in September and supported their methods.

Members who spoke in support cited prior successful notifications in other systems and a council member noted an example where Yapify-style notifications had alerted a resident to a leaking sprinkler system and prevented water loss. A motion to adopt the interlocal agreement passed by roll call 5–0.

The agreement authorizes the mayor to execute the interlocal cooperation agreement; staff said they will coordinate implementation with Central Utah Water and Yapify and follow grant conditions for the transparent billing subsidy.