Electronic Water Meters Discussed

The conversion to electronic water meters came in with an estimated cost of $2 million, but the cost to be encumbered upon individual Speedway ratepayers still remains unknown. The town council was reluctant to jump into the deal without knowing all of the details of the procurement plan, so by consensus, the council postponed the agenda item.
David Wrigthsmanof Bowen Engineering, co-author of the project proposal, explained the new technology would replace the old meters with new radio frequency devices. The meter usage information is transmitted using RFID technology that will allow a town employee to read meters while he drives. This method would replace the need of physically checking every meter or calculating bill estimations. The current process takes an employee about two weeks to read the meters.
The proposal estimates the annual pay back would be $185,600 because the town would be gaining two percent with more accurate billings.
Wrightsman said the soft dollars represent the savings in the area of human resources because it no longer requires an employee to read meters for two weeks. These additional days of not reading meters allows this employee to have an expanded job duties that would have required the town to hire an additional person.
The plan also required moving the last ten percent of the meters into an outdoor pit for a standardizing the system. This would cost about $71,050 to move about 400 meters.
Speedway Councilman Dean Farmer said the old meters move slower as the sediment builds up slowing down the reading mechanism. Users could be using more water than is being metered. The new technology could mean a bigger water usage bill to ratepayers.
There is also a concern that ratepayers may be reaching their affordable limit because future rate hikes are expected to pay for the estimated $21.3 million waste water treatment long term control plan that is required by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
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