It will be new water meters for all in the city in the coming months following approval of a mass replacement plan taken by Yorkton Council Monday.
For background, Trent Mandzuk – Director of Public Works, with the City explained to Council; “Water meters measure the volume of water used by residential and commercial building units that are supplied with water by a public water supply system. Water meters are generally owned, read and maintained by a public water provider.”
As meters age they can have problems.
“Some types of meters become less accurate as they age, and under-registering consumption leads to lower revenues if defective meters are not regularly replaced,” said Mandzuk.
As a result, “Over the past four years, we have been evaluating a City-wide water replacement program in attempt to modernize our metering system and take advantage of the many advanced technologies now available.”
“Our current system is very inefficient in comparison to the automated capabilities of present day Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) technologies,” continued Mandzuk.
And that means replacement.
This project was officially approved in the 2020/2021 capital budget.
The City of Yorkton currently has 6,472 Neptune water meters in the distribution system. Of those 5,413 are 10-years old, or older.
The recommended replacement cycle for water meters is typically 20 years, said Mandzuk.
“With 80 percent of the meters being over 10 years old, a City-wide change out is the preferred replacement option in comparison to a multi-year program,” he added.
“This project is a huge undertaking requiring coordination with Yorkton residents, vendors and multiple City departments ... For this purpose itis more efficient and economical to replace all water meters in one interval.”
The new meters should address inefficiencies.
“The new system will be fully automated with water usage being transmitted via radio frequency to a number of data collectors located throughout the City. These collectors will then transfer this data to a cloud based data management platform. The data is then downloaded directly to the City’s billing system,” explained Mandzuk.
In February 2021, a Request for Proposal (RFP) was advertised on SaskTenders and the City webpage for the supply, installation and calibration of an AMI system.
“This project includes the supply of water meters, related infrastructure and all necessary training and support, including ongoing access to a web-based customer portal allowing customers to see information specific to their water account such as trends, actualusage and leak detection notifications,” said Mandzuk.
The water meter replacement program includes the full cost of ownership over the next 20 years.
The City received three proposals with Council approving awarding the bid to Neptune Technology Group for $2,076,680.50.
The City-wide water meter replacement programis expected to require 12 months for completion.
This project will be funded by Water Works reserves as identified in the 2020/2021 Capital budget.
