Aged Water Meters Will Go High-Tech

The city’s water officials are preparing to jump into the technological age with a $1.9-million program to replace thousands of aged meters.

About 17,000 residential meters are so old that the city is losing nearly $200,000 per year in revenue, said Loren Tuthill, deputy director of the Public Works Department.

Pistons in the meters, which are 20 to 25 years old, tend to slow down in their old age and register less water than is actually used, he said.

Under the plan, the old meters will be replaced with automatic registers that merely require the touch of a wand for an accurate reading. The wand device records the water usage and can then be downloaded directly into the city’s computer, Tuthill said.

Workers now bend down to read the meter, make notes by hand and then have clerks transcribe the readings and type them into the computer.

“This will be a better, more accurate system,” Greg Beaubien, interim city manager, told the City Council on Monday.

Tuthill estimates that it will take about 18 months to replace all the meters once the city buys the new equipment.

The city will recoup the costs of the equipment in about 11 years, which is roughly the life span of a water meter, Tuthill said.

Council members voted 4 to 0 to go with the new meters.