Byrdstown Water Meters To Be Installed By Weekend

After a miscalculation, Byrdstown is set to have all new water meters installed by the weekend.

Byrdstown Mayor Sam Gibson said after ordering some 3,000 meters, the city realized they needed another 200 more. He said waiting on the additional meters, coupled with the challenge of dealing with new technology got the project behind schedule. Gibson said the new meters will be read remotely.

“Finding somebody too that doesn’t care to get up and down on their hands and knees 300 or 400 times per day and get in and out of a vehicle that many times, it’s tough,” Gibson said. “So, it’s going to make things a whole lot smoother.”

Gibson said until now, water usage has been written on paper and entered into the computer system, creating the possibility of misreads that cost rate-payers money. He said the new system will help the city run more efficiently and free up employees to help with other projects.

“Whenever you’re looking at thousands of gallons of water and you get one number wrong, you may end up charging somebody for 10,000 gallons more than they’ve used because we’ve made an error,” Gibson said.

He said some $630,000 of the million-dollar project was paid for by a Community Development Block Grant and the remaining $350,000 came from the city’s “rainy day” fund. He said older meters tend to allow water to pass through uncalculated. He said the city expects an additional savings by ensuring every gallon is recorded.

“We’ve got two people,” Gibson said. “One of them is full-time that reads meters and the other one is part-time. So basically, you can take those two people now, and you can put them with the rest of our city employees and let them help do other things, such as maintenance of water lines and leaks.”

He said the new meters will cut meter-reading work from a 30-day project to just two days. He said the city will run the first scans of the new readers on Monday and Tuesday to check that everything is working properly.