$5.7 million update of water meters in works – Updated technology at Olympia homes will send readings remotely to city

 The Olympia City Council last week approved paying the company Itron $4.4 million to replace or retrofit the city’s traditional water meters with automated technology that will send usage information remotely to the city. The entire project will cost $5.7 million, including the retrofitting of some meters and meter lid replacements, said Meliss Maxfield, drinking-water program manager for the city.

The project will replace about 14,000 meters that are 10 years old or older and retrofit about 6,000 meters with automated technology. Meters are supposed to have a life cycle of 10 years or 1 million gallons, Maxfield said, but Olympia’s system dates to 1977.

Maxfield said the replacement project will start with about 500 meters in July. If the results are good in 30 days, the city will continue with the installation, which will take about a year.

She made a case for replacing the meters.

“With aging water meters comes under-reporting of consumption and usage,” she said. “Mechanical meters tend to lose their accuracy over time … resulting in lost revenues and customer inequity.”

Olympia will save an estimated $200,000 per year by not sending meter readers into the field, Maxfield said, not to mention being able to avoid dogs, the elements and repeated bending over to read meters.

“We’re also encouraging water conservation by being able to identify and notify our customers sooner of water leaks and potential water wastage, which will save them money,” she said.

A 2006 master plan for the water system called for the automated readers. Lacey and Tumwater have already transitioned to the automated technology, according to an Olympia staff report.

But meter readers are not going away entirely. Maxfield said the city’s force of three full-time readers and one part-time reader would be reduced to two. Fifteen percent of the system still will require employees to read meters in the city’s urban-growth area, because installing the equipment that sends the meter information remotely to the city is cost-prohibitive, Maxfield said.

Money for the project is coming from ratepayers of the water utility, not taxes. Maxfield said the cost of the project was built into rate hikes that went into effect earlier this year. Council members all supported the project.

“What a great project,” Councilman Jim Cooper said. “Anything that saves money and helps staff safety is pretty exciting, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this happen.”