Wheeling invests $3.5 million in new water meters

Wheeling will be selling $3.5 million in bonds to pay for new state-of-the-art water meters for the village’s nearly 8,000 residential and commercial units.

Village trustees this week approved a contract with HD Supply Waterworks Ltd. to buy and install new water meters and a meter reading system within the next year. HD Supply Waterworks submitted the lowest bid of 15 proposals for the project.

Residential meters last were replaced in the early 1990s and are past the American Water Works Association’s recommended service life, officials said. Some commercial meters date back to 40 years ago, said Village Manager Jon Sfondilis.

Public Works Director Anthony Stavros said the new meter system will use electronic transmitters to send water use date from homes and businesses to antennas on top of the village’s water towers. The high-tech system will eliminate the need for public works employees to visit individual homes, freeing their time for other work, Stavros said.

The new program also will be customer-friendly because the company will be able to instantly pull up residents’ accounts and email them charts showing exact usage, he said.

“We’re in a position where we need to switch over from our current system because it’s failing, at some point we wouldn’t be able to read meters,” Stavros said. “As long as we’re going to do a switch-out, I recommended doing a complete meter system change as well.”

The new meters are also lead-free to meet new EPA regulations that go into effect in 2014, he said.

Wheeling will sell $3.5 million in 20-year general obligation bonds in May to fund the project, which Village Finance Director Michael Mondschain previously told the board will eliminate the need for a large water rate increase.

However, residents may see a slight increase in rates because of the increased accuracy of the meters, which record usage to the tenth of a gallon, Stavros said.

Meter replacement could begin by June, and will start with a 500-home pilot program to make sure the replacement schedule is working well.

Residents will be contacted by the company when work nears their neighborhood to set up an appointment. Someone over the age of 18 will need to be home at the time as workers will need to be inside the house, Stavros said. He also asked that homeowners clean out the area that houses their water meter before the company gets there to make the work quicker.