City to begin installing new automated water meter readers in January - Tulsa World

City to begin installing new automated water meter readers

The city plans to begin installing new automated water meter readers in January, kicking off a four-year, $93.7 million project to provide the devices to approximately 145,000 residential customers and small commerical structures.

The pace of installations will increase from month to month, starting with an estimated 15 installations per day in January and reaching more than 200 per day by August.

Melissa Gray, operations manager for the city’s Water and Sewer Department, said the city’s meter reading cycles and routes will determine when a customer’s new meter will be installed.

“Where a customer falls in the billing cycle will determine when their meter will be changed out,” Gray said. “Because the meter read cycles and routes are geographically spread out across the city, it’s difficult to predict which customers will get their meters installed first.”

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“We realize this is important information for customers, so the Water and Sewer Department is developing a publicly accessible map that will be updated regularly to help better communicate this information.”

Water meters are typically located near the curb line of a property.

The installation process will include removing the existing circular meter cans and replacing them with meter boxes that measure 15 inches by 20 inches.

At the same time, customers’ service lines will be inspected for lead, part of an EPA initiative to identify and remove lead lines from public water utilities across the country.

Tulsa Water and Sewer Department officials have said previously that historical records indicate that lead lines have not been widely used in the city. City officials acknowledge, however, that those records are not comprehensive, so it is taking the opportunity to verify the data while installing the automated meter readers.

Installation of the new meter readers will require a minimum amount of digging around the perimeter of the existing meter and will cause minimal interruption in water service, according to the city.

“The customer’s water service will be interrupted only during the exchange of the meter, which should take no more than 30 minutes,” Gray said.

Initially, the city will use door hangers to notify customers that their meters are being replaced. As the program unfolds, customers will also receive a notification by mail, followed by the door hanger notice a week before the installation.

“The day of installation, crews will attempt to contact the customer by knocking on their door,” Gray said. “After work is performed, crews will leave a post-work door hanger notifying the customer that their meter has been changed out and their service line material was inspected.”

Water customers will not be billed directly for the new meters and the cost to install them. Instead, the expense is being built into customers’ water rates.

The Water and Sewer Department is projecting an overall 20% increase in water rates between fiscal years 2024 and 2028 to cover operations and capital expenses. The AMR installations and related work are expected to account for 3% to 6% of the total increase.

In addition to providing greater accuracy and enhanced customer service, the project, dubbed True Reads, is intended to reduce or eliminate the need to estimate a water customer’s usage.

From 2018 and 2022, the percentage of customer water bills that were based on water usage estimates — rather than an actual manual reading — rose from 1% to 20% and was ev+en higher in the first two months of 2023, according to figures provided to the Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority.

Earlier this year, Gray estimated that the city would save $30.7 million over the next 20 years by installing the AMR system, with more than a third of the savings coming from labor costs.

The city already uses AMR technology at locations where it is difficult or dangerous to read a meter, and it has been implemented in surrounding communities such as Jenks, Owasso and Broken Arrow.

For more information about the AMR system and the city’s plan for installing it, go to cityoftulsa.org/truereads. The website will be updated with a map detailing the installation when it becomes available.

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