New water meters being installed in the James City area will help detect line breaks and leaks more quickly, potentially saving money for residents.
Dail Booth, water superintendent for Craven County, said a project is underway to change out approximately 15,000 meters across the Craven County water system. The first phase of the project includes the James City area, primarily focusing on meters located in the 1-42 corridor construction zone.
Booth said the replacement of current water meters will provide multiple benefits for citizens, including increased accuracy of readings, less delays in billing, and quicker notification of leak detection.
According to Booth, antennas installed as part of the meter project will help more effectively detect water main and water line breaks.
“We can pick up on that a lot faster rather than every 30 days when we go and read the meter. Now we can run a weekly report and be able to figure out if somebody’s got higher consumption and alert that person so they can get it fixed in a more timely manner, which saves the customer money on their side and also on our side too,” Booth explained.
Booth said the new system will also allow county workers to read meters without driving from house to house and business to business. Currently, workers have to physically go onto a property and lift up the lid to read the meter, he noted.
“They deal with spiders and snakes and dogs and all that stuff,” Booth said. “This will allow us to instantaneously read any meter that has this transmitter.”
Booth went before the Craven County Board of Commissioners on August 21 to request the rollover of $394,307 remaining from last year’s budget in order to finish out Phase 1 of the water meter replacement work in the current fiscal year. Booth said a supply chain issue had slowed down the water department’s purchase of transmitters needed for the project, which meant the work was not completed by June 30 as previously scheduled.
The board also approved a budget amendment of $1,193,500 for phase II of the project, which will fund the installation of approximately 2,400 new meters.
Booth said Phase II will remain focused on additional routes in the same high traffic areas in the James City area, mainly in the Madam Moores Lane, Old Cherry Point Road and Old Airport Road areas.
The water department has all the meters and antennas needed for the project and is currently waiting for fiber connectivity to the county’s two data collection base stations, Booth said.
“Once that’s up and going we should be able to test pilot 50 meters or so just to make sure we collect the data, take the data and process it and then bill it before we do a full-scale installation,” Booth said.
According to Booth, the meter installation project should be wrapped up in the next 60 days.
He stressed that the new meters will also ensure accurate readings can be maintained in the event of a severe weather event such as Hurricane Florence in 2018.
“We have a backup drive-by system so rather than the individuals having to go back to reading by hand we have a unit that fits inside of the truck and a laptop and when you pull up into a vicinity it’ll wake up those meters in that radius and you’ll be able to call in,” he said. “It’s a little bit more labor intensive but it’s still better than the direct read system we have now.”
By Todd Wetherington, co-editor. Send an email with questions or comments.