New ultrasonic metres will help the City of Weyburn regulate their water intake, after a tender proposal was approved by City Council to facilitate a water meter replacement program during their Monday night meeting.
The city plans to replace mechanical water meters (installed from 1997 to 1999) with advanced technology non-mechanical water meters, equipped with a fixed-automated meter reading system. Lead service lines will also be identified during the water meter replacement portion of the project and will subsequently be replaced.
Three tenders were received by the city for the water meter replacement program, with Corix recommended by Tom Williams, acting city engineer, and the city staff. Corix will facilitate the water meter replacement program at an initial cost of $1,874,224 and an annual cost of $42,036. It was noted that there might be an initial slight increase to the water bill, but that the city is projected to be able to save money in the long run.
“With the existing meters, especially with the low flows, those water flows are not recorded. People might notice a slight increase on their water bill,” explained Williams. “People are paying for roughly a 20 per cent loss now in their water bills. That loss will start to be recovered by the city, and once city staff start to account for the amount use, there could be a reduction in water rates.”
“These new water meters are state-of-the-art,” said Williams. “No other city in western Canada has these automatic ultrasonic water meters.”
“The City of Weyburn is being very innovative and we want to move ahead with this work so that we are continuing to keep Weyburn as a sustainable community,” said Mayor Marcel Roy. “We want Weyburn to be a community that is looking towards the future, moving towards that future, and working on projects that are sustainable, so that these projects are durable and won’t be costing our tax payers money.”
The replacement of the city’s existing water meters and lead service lines will be partially funded by a provincial and federal grant, under the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund. The total eligible cost of that program is $5,439,500, with the federal and provincial contribution of $4,2079,625. The water meter replacement portion of the project was estimated to cost $2,000,000. The Corix bid was received under the budget.
