Home › News › Local News
Oxnard to spend $3.4 mil on high-tech water meters
STORY TOOLS 
More from Local NewsOxnard expects to finish installing high-tech water meters throughout the city by the year's end after the City Council Tuesday unanimously approved spending $3.41 million to finish the job.
The money will buy meters and related parts for about 9,500 hookups, or roughly 25 percent of the city's 38,000 customers. This will include new development and retrofitting outdated meters.
Oxnard began installing the automated meters in 2001. But the project faltered a few times when the water division ran out of allotted dollars, Anthony Emmert, Oxnard's water resources manager, said after the decision.
The new technology allows city employees to read water meters from a wireless laptop computer in a car while driving past the hookup.
The technology fails about 1 percent of the time, Emmert said. But the program has likely saved the city money by freeing up employees for other responsibilities, he said. The department is analyzing the program to see how much money it has saved the city and will release those findings in a report later, Emmert said.
Installation is expected to be done by the end of the year, Emmert said.
Councilman Tim Flynn was concerned that the city was locked in by contract to buying the parts from one vendor, Ontario, Calif.-based Aqua Metric Sales Co. He also questioned why the city couldn't get a guaranteed price in 2001 when the city first approved the contact with Aqua Metric.
Citing the rising cost of construction materials, Emmert said it was doubtful that vendors would ensure prices in 2001 for sales six years later.
Posted by shaver_one on April 25, 2007 at 11:22 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"...be able to read meters via laptop while driving past..."
And if there's a computer glitch...we all end up being charged for usage several times more than we should. Just another system that's hackable by the unscrupulous. And since the meter readers don't have to get out of their cars...in four or five years we the people of Oxnard will be fee'd to pay for exercise equipment so the meter readers can lose weight. What a waste of money!
Posted by JohnMcNary on April 25, 2007 at 2:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)
What if your meter needs to reboot? Do they have CTRL-ALT-DEL buttons?
(Requires free registration.)
Article discussions on this site are to support community debates of issues related to our stories and editorials.
Discussions should not stray from the subject of the story or editorial.
We do not allow the following:
We reserve the right to delete threads and/or ban users for these or other reasons we deem necessary.
Opinions are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.