After years of hinting that a full-scale water meter replacement campaign would be coming to North Riverside, village trustees on Monday got an overview of just how much such an effort would cost – and what the resulting long-term benefits would be to the village treasury.
 Representatives from HD Supply Waterworks and Sensus Metering System for two hours on Monday afternoon pitched their plan to replace all 2,400 residential and commercial water meters in the village with a radio-read system they say will capture more than $100,000 per year in lost water revenues.
Over a 20-year period, they said, the village would realize an increase in revenue of $3.15 million. The companies based that figure on what they termed “conservative” estimates, figuring that the old meters now in place throughout the village only record 80 percent of the water flowing through them.
A study done by HD Waterworks, distributed to trustees Monday, indicates that the village may not be charging for as much as 44 percent of the water running through the system. About 24 percent of that loss is from inaccurate meters or water main leaks, they said.
The reason the water meters aren’t capturing all of the water running through them is that the older meters have lost their capacity to read “low flow” usage – whenever someone uses less than a gallon of water at a time. That accounts for much of the residential usage.
The new meters, which have few or no moving parts, don’t wear out and can register extremely low-flow usage. That way the village can capture revenue it is now failing to collect.
In the past six months, according to Public Works Director Tim Kutt, the village has been installing the new meters whenever an old one wears out. The difference in the way the new meters register is noticeable. One residential customer’s registered usage increased by 10,000 gallons after the new meter was installed, Kutt said.
If there’s a downside to installing the new meters – at least from a water customer’s standpoint – that’s it.
“You will get some high-bill complaints,” said Jerry Plotke, a meter specialist for HD Waterworks. “People will say, ‘I’ve never gotten such a bill in the 35 years that I’ve lived here.'”
But the point of the water meter replacement isn’t punitive, said trustees, but for the village to collect on the water actually used by residents and businesses.
“We’re just asking them to pay for what they use,” said Trustee Rocco DeSantis.
Plotke said the new metering system could also allow the village to bill customers on a monthly basis, which might soften the blow.
“If you break it down monthly, they won’t even feel it,” Plotke said.
The village will also save money in the amount of time it takes to read those new water meters. There are two options the village can use – a mobile-read system, where an employee in a vehicle can drive through town and read meters via radio signals sent from the meters. Such a method would reduce the meter-reading time to a just couple of hours.
Or the village could place an antenna on top of the water standpipe on 26th Street and have all the meters in town read via radio signals sent periodically during the day to the antenna.
Such a system, which is used in Brookfield, gives the village the ability to track water usage on an hourly basis, pinpointing both leaks and those who might be tampering with their water meters.
It’s unclear which system trustees will settle on or how the village will finance the water-meter replacement program.
The cost to replace all meters and install a mobile-read system is estimated to be $913,000. If the village chooses the water tower antenna options, the system will cost about $972,000 to install, according to figures provided by HD Waterworks.
The village can phase-in the work to spread out the cost and has the ability to upgrade the mobile-read system to an antenna-read system in the future, deferring some of the cost upfront.
In addition, should the village decide to move forward on a water-meter changeout, officials would also seek to bring water billing inside village hall. Presently, water bills are produced by an outside contractor at a cost of about $12,000 per year, said Village Administrator Guy Belmonte.
The village could begin to save on that cost by bringing the operation in-house. However, it would also necessitate buying a computer software program. It’s unclear what that would add to the total cost of the project.
Trustees will convene a finance committee meeting on Sept. 12 to further discuss options on financing.