City council has approved a plan to replace Greater Sudbury's aging stock of water meters with a new generation of meters the city says offer advantages to both customers and the municipality.
While the city normally replaces about 1,000 metres a year, the plan approved Tuesday will see all 48,000 replaced over the next three-and-a-half years at a cost of $17.189 million.
Once installed, the city expects to save $684,000 in annual operating costs. The new meters transmit information via radio signals and can be read remotely, saving $360,000 a year by eliminating the cost of manually reading the meters.
Customers will receive monthly bills based on actual consumption, rather than estimates, and will get access to an online portal that allows them to track their water usage in real time. They can even set it up so they get automatic alerts if their consumption spikes or if the meters detect a leak.
“Residents will be able to log on and see just how much water they're using," said city infrastructure GM Tony Cecutti.
The meters also “provide updated information to residents with frozen water issues through low water flow alarm on residences that have historical water issues,” a staff report on the plan said.
The city's existing meters are already in need of replacement, a process that would cost $10.2 million. By spending the extra $7 million on the new advanced meters, the savings in operating costs will allow the city to recoup the $7 million in 10.2 years,
And the advanced meters will allow the city to do a better job of detecting where treated water is being lost due to leaking pipes. More than 30 per cent of the water produced in the city is unaccounted for, much of which is due to old underground infrastructure.
“We've got leaky pipes,” said Mike Jensen, director of water/wastewater for the city. “We create 20 (million cubic metres of water), we can only account for 12.
That's not very good. And a lot of that is leaking pipes in our water system.”
To address the loss, the city has an aggressive pipe relining program, in which a latex lining is used to coat the inside of old pipe to seal off leaks. The new meters will help the city determine which areas are losing the most water, and where the relining efforts should be concentrated.
And, Jensen said, the meters will help reduce consumption since consumers can watch their usage in detail on their smartphones or computers. Reducing consumption is a big part of their plan to avoid spending $500 million long term building new facilities.
“Rather than spending that money on building new infrastructure, why don't we concentrate our efforts on conservation,” he said. “It's much more effective, and, frankly, cheaper.”
