Salt Spring Island’s water-wise residents will soon be able to view the fruits of their low-flow lifestyles on their phones and computers.
Thanks to securing a better-than-predicted deal from suppliers — and through shifting some fund allocations to take advantage of it — the largest water meter replacement project in Salt Spring’s history will now take three years, rather than four, according to North Salt Spring Waterworks District (NSSWD) staff, and is starting almost right away. The first 300 of what will eventually be more than 1,800 new meters will begin going in this year, as the NSSWD board voted Thursday, Oct. 23 to approve spending roughly $200,000 to make it happen.
The eventual system-wide upgrade is about more than just satisfying water-use enthusiasts, according to director of operations Ryan Moray. Until now, staff have only replaced meters as they completely failed, or at a customer’s request, but there are problems with older meters remaining in service longer than the industry-recommended 20-year replacement interval, he said. As they age, most meters tend to start under-registering how much water flows through them — by as much as 15 per cent in some cases, according to a staff report, which adds up.
“The new meters have the ability for the customer to be able to create a portal,” said Moray, “whereby they can log in and see their consumption, or be alerted to a continual flow — like a leak.”
Once the new devices and the software to manage them are in place, NSSWD customers will be able to continually monitor that consumption on phones, tablets and computers. Those sorts of web-based charts, graphs and other tools should encourage more thoughtful water use, Moray said, and the data will help the district better understand where water is going.
“They’ll provide increased read frequencies,” said Moray. “We’ll have readings bounce in several times a day, versus every two months going out and reading them.”
Every year, that in-person meter-reading had been adding up to over 1,000 hours of labour all on its own, according to financial officer Tammy Lannan — the equivalent of about half a full-time employee.
“Roughly it costs us about $45,000 every year just to manually read meters and enter them in,” said Lannan. “So there’s a huge cost savings and time savings when moving [to automated meter reading].”
The most “senior” meters and those connected to the highest-use customers, such as bulk meters at stratas, will be first in line for replacement, according to staff.
“We know we have a few customers that are keen to get on the list right away,” said chief administrative officer Mark Boysen. “They have old meters, and we talk to them a lot — because they have challenges on their system.”
Boysen added staff would be working to ensure the consumption data collected would stay with the district — held on Canadian servers.
“I think we have some keen water-savers who will actually be excited to check out their water consumption, seeing how they’re doing in the summertime,” said Boysen.