UPDATE: The City Commission voted 6-0 to approve the contract at its meeting on Monday. Mayor Bill Mutz was absent.
The days of city employees going into Lakeland residents’ backyards or businesses, lifting the lids on partially buried boxes, and sweeping dirt aside to read numbers on a water meter may be coming to an end.
Over the next four years, Lakeland Water Utilities plans to replace legacy mechanical meters with smart meters. The new devices include a wireless transmitter, which will allow usage to be read automatically at the Lakeland utility’s headquarters without anyone having to physically visit the service address.
The technology will eventually allow customers to monitor usage in almost real time, with just an hour delay.
The Water Utilities Department has almost 63,600 water meters in its service territory and has already replaced about 23,000 legacy water meters. More than 34,000 more meters still need to be replaced, at a cost of nearly $52 apiece — or about $4 million.
The cost is included in the department’s fiscal year 2024 budget, but the City Commission must approve the proposed contract with a supplier.
“We took on this project about 10 years ago and we tried to complete it in-house with our staff and we just didn’t have the resources,” explained David Bayhan, director of water utilities. He added that the project could be completed sooner than the four-year timeframe if the meters can be found and bought sooner.
City staff is recommending the commissioners approve the contract with RTS Water Solutions, LLC , out of Parkville, Missouri. It would be for Neptune T-10 meters, which are manufactured in Alabama, and SmartPoint 510M wireless transmitters made in Mexico.
“The technology is outstanding,” Bayhan said. “To be able to go when we have a customer whose got a high-bill complaint, we can go and research remotely the data and we can tell what’s going on. Do they have a leak — is it irrigation? Ninety percent of the time, it’s an irrigation situation where their timer is malfunctioning or they have a leak or something and we can actually steer them in the right direction. It’s fantastic. We just need to get the thing fully deployed.”
He said eventually, an app will be created so customers can monitor their water usage themselves and get a notification if they have a possible leak.
“Forward thinking, the idea is you could get a customer interface so that you can put alerts on your own application to flag you as to when your usage has gone up to a certain threshold that you have dictated so you can watch your water bill and your water usage,” Bayhan said. “If you start to see high-volume usage, you could get an alarm. That’s what we’re shooting for.”
About three weeks before each customer’s meter is scheduled to be changed, they will receive a letter via the U.S. Postal Service, separate from their bill. The work itself takes just under an hour to complete. Water will have to be turned off while it is being performed.
“The technician has to dig up the box or take the meter out of the box, he has to program the new meter and there’s some wiring that goes into effect,” said Bayhan.
Larger meters will continue to be replaced by city workers instead of contractors.
Cathryn Lacy, utilities marketing manager, said the department currently employs eight full-time meter readers, four of whom are contract employees.
“We expect the meter reader role to develop to support other areas of the utility, which are expanding with our community’s growth and new utility technologies,” Lacy said when asked if the meter readers would be losing their jobs. “Some employees may also receive on-the-job training to move into other areas of the utility. Meter services will continue to be needed to install, maintain and service all of our smart meters, although at a reduced scale.”
The City Commission will vote on the contract on Monday at its meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. in the city commission chambers.
This story has been corrected with the correct number of meter readers.
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