Automated water meters on the way

Water customers in the City of Aledo will soon be able to track their water usage in real time. The city has embarked on a project to install automated water meters.

“Automated water meters became a part of the conversation when we were talking about  things that would make the city more efficient and ways that we could advance the city as we grow,” Mayor Nick Stanley said.

Stanley said some meters in the city are decades old, and added that about 50 percent of U.S. cities now utilize automated meters.

“And so it just became one of those things, as we were talking about cost of water, transparency to the consumer, wanting people to have that ability to choose to set alerts on their phone for usage and be able to check your usage throughout the month. It became readily apparent that was something we needed to try and move to so the city council became really supportive of that idea,” Stanley said.

The city conducted a pilot program with about 100 automated meters.

“That was successful and we saw good results from that. So we decided to move forward with it,” Stanley added. He said it takes about 15-30 minutes to install an automated meter, and after that the meter will emit a radio signal that will allow the city to obtain readings without manually having to access each meter.

It takes the public works department about three days a month to perform meter readings throughout the city. Stanley said the saved staff time will be used on other needed projects throughout the growing city.

One advantage of the new system is that it will allow water customers to become aware earlier if they have leaks or other problems.

“You’ll be able to log in — set your desired usage, and you can set alerts — the alerts for leakage I believe are automatic. But it’s going to be an amazing tool for people to be able to see that progression and their uses throughout the month and really understand it,” Stanley said.

Stanley said water rates in the city will not change with the implementation of the meters.

“And that ambiguity or misunderstanding of how much usage they have — that’s going to be at their fingertips. I think that’s empowering and I think that’s going to help us a lot here in the city, both on the city side for city staff, and more importantly the residents.”

You can hear Mayor Stanley’s full remarks in the video accompanying the web posting of this story.