City approves funds for water meter replacement

By Randy Bell

The water meter system Clinton installed in 2010 is already past its life expectancy, and the problems continue to mount. As a result, $1 million has been added to the Public Works Department’s budget to replace meters which can no longer be read using a radio signal.

“Not being able to remotely read these registers requires them to be manually read,” Public Works Director Phillip Lilley told the Board of Aldermen at its March 3 meeting. “I’m using my asphalt crew, my grass crew and anybody else I can free up” [to read the meters.]

Lilley said the problem was discovered in early 2024, when Public Works saw an increase in the number of meters not transmitting readings. While there were temporary glitches at some locations, eventually 1,400 non-functioning registers were identified and replaced. Since then, there’ve been more failure – a total of 2,880 – and Lilley says with the system reaching its expected service life, the trend will continue. He estimates that it will take almost $2.126 million to replace the rest of the meters but believes spending $1 million now will be a good start.

“It allows us to buy [replacements for] the current failed registers, plus have a little left over should any more fail here in the future, with hopes that, going into next year’s budget, I can present you a proposal to replace the remainder,” Lilley told the Board.

With 8,207 automated meter reading (AMR) units on the system and 1,400 replaced in 2024, that leaves 6,807 still in need of being upgraded, including the ones that aren’t working.