Forest Park is one step closer to replacing water meters throughout the village.
At the last village council meeting, commissioners unanimously approved two ordinances that move forward this year’s effort to replace all residential and commercial manual water meters with digital ones.
“It should be an easy transition,” Sal Stella, director of the village’s public works department, previously told the Review of the new water meters. “It’s helping my department as far as being more efficient.”
The village started replacing water meters in 2000, largely targeting those that were degrading or faulty. The replacement meters were mechanical with a wireless system, so public works employees drove around town to read the meters, but didn’t have to leave the truck.
The newest wave of water meters will be read through a radio signal from an antenna on a water tower, allowing village staff to monitor water usage from village hall. And customers will now be able to monitor their own water usage through a customer portal.
The latest ordinances that the village council passed regarding water meters include VertexOne to create, operate and maintain a water utility customer portal; and Core & Main as a point of service for water meters operation, maintenance and software integration.
The latter agreement is “for the company that we are going to use to get us the water meters and help us with the install,” said Village Administrator Rachell Entler during her report at the end of the village council meeting.
For the ordinances, the village council opted to waive bidding requirements and accept the proposals they got from the companies. According to the village code, commissioners can waive competitive bidding requirements for projects if four-fifths of the council members vote in favor.
In October, the village council gave the go ahead to request consulting services to help implement the replacement process. They will help get the materials for the water meter replacement and help with installation.
Village staff and the chosen consulting firm met earlier this month to kick off the water meter replacement project. Much of the initial work will be internal and on the back end of the village-wide water meter replacement.
“Before we can even do the install, we’ll have to get our software up-to-speed and connect everything for our county,” Entler said. “It’s probably going to be a little bit before the public sees anything with the water meter project.”
While residents may see a slightly higher bill with digital water meters, they will also be able to account for every single drop with the new customer portal.
“It’s giving the customer more transparency on their end and giving them the option for alerts,” Stella previously told the Review about the customer portal.
The portal will “eventually allow users to be able to access their water meter usage and hopefully will allow people to have a better idea of how they’re using water,” Entler said during her report. “They won’t have to wait until we do billing to realize they may have a water leak somewhere in their house.”
Correction, Feb. 19, 2024, 9:40 a.m.: An earlier version of this article gave the wrong number of ordinances passed for new water meters. The ordinance that would allow Sensus USA to provide software to read the water meters and radio wave spectrum access was tabled because the village is waiting for a certificate that they requested from Sensus and will vote on the ordinance in a future meeting. We apologize for the error.
