Water Meter Project in Washington Nears Completion

About 84.5 percent of new water meters have been installed in Washington, Greg Masters, a representative of Siemens Building Technologies, told city council Monday night.

The project encompassed the installation of 6,746 meters. Of those, 5,740 have been installed. Of that, 4,600 customers were billed for water usage for the month of August using the new meters.

Masters noted that the last thousand meters will be the most difficult to install. There are about 400 customers on the “no contact” list.

Additionally, Siemens is waiting on additional materials to be delivered.

“We ended up with some areas that we believed were five-eighths-inch meters, and they’re actually three-quarter-inch meters,” he said. “With getting that product here, it could take until December to be completed.”

Councilman Mark Hidritch brought to the meeting an old hookup that was left behind at the job site and asked if that was the kind of work the company was doing.

“Everything is supposed to be cleaned up. I’m sure it was an oversight,” Masters said.

The city contracted with Siemens Building Technologies and the firm’s installation partner, Pedal Valves, Inc. (PVI), to install the new residential and commercial iPERL water meters throughout town this year.

The entire project will cost about $4,590,000 and is being funded through a lease agreement with lease payments being provided by a group of local banks.

Under terms of the agreement, the city will pay interest costs totaling $1,154,838.50 over the 15-year term of the lease.

The project is behind schedule, as the estimated completion date was mid-September.