Town leaders address high water bills, plan to install 1,800 new meters to ensure accuracy

Carteret County-NC — After Newport residents raised concerns about unusually high water bills, town leaders discovered that the issue was with their water meters. Water would flow in one end and out the other, magnetically turning a dial that would send out updates every 30 days. The problem is that the shelf life of these was supposed to be 20 years, but they’re only lasting 10 to 12.

At the start of July, several Newport residents noticed sudden hikes in their water bills.

We decided that we really needed to review our internal system and do a complete assessment of all of our water metersso that’s what we did.” says Michelle Querry, Interim Town Manager.

According to Newport’s Utilities Director Bernie Hall, they found the current meters were experiencing battery failures.

We manually read every meter and we also took a photo of that reading to make sure there would be no discrepancies, no numbers could be transcribed or anything of that nature so we could verify those readings. said Micelle Querry.

As for the residents affected, Interim Town Manager Michelle Querry says they are working with each person who called with concerns to determine the correct amount for their water bills.

We’re working with them individually to ensure there’s fairness in the process and that they’re only paying for the water they absolutely used.

Now, Querry says the town is investing $600,000 in new meters. Over the next 3 years, Newport will be getting 600 new meters each year.

We will start with the ones that are starting to age, we will start to replace those initially then we will go from oldest to newest within 3 years we’ll have a completely new water meter inventory.

The first batch of 600 new water meters will be here in just a couple of weeksand these new water meters can transmit cellular data every day to both customers and the town, to be able to check and see the water usage.