TULSA, Okla. — New water meters could provide more accurate and efficient readings for Tulsa homes.
The City of Tulsa started the years long process of installing 145,000 new meters on Jan. 22.
“This horrible weather and everything and they’re just out there going after it,” said Kevin Kelly.
Crews worked for hours at house in a Tulsa neighborhood on a rainy Tuesday. Kevin Kelly lives in the neighborhood and watched them work. He said the new meters they’re installing may help solve some of the water billing issues for his family.
“If they work it’s great,” said Kelly. “Our water bills have been inconsistent even though we pay in full every month. We either get a credit balance or an overdue balance on the bill.”
Over the course of the next four years, crews will be replacing nearly every water meter at every Tulsa home.
“It makes our meter reading operations much more efficient,” said Melissa Gray. “So instead of manually reading meters, we’ll be able to send a meter reader throughout a neighborhood and automatically collect those meter reads from the meter.”
Melissa Gray, Utility Services Operations manager with the City of Tulsa, said along with better efficiency, it could also make the readings more accurate.
“Any time you have to enter numbers into a handheld device there’s an opportunity for human error, so this new process will eliminate that,” said Gray.
The work takes about 30 minutes at each home and people are notified in advance. Gray said the goal is to replace 300 to 500 meters every week.
The True Reads Program is also pinpointing any lead lines or parts and removing them from the system.
“There is no safe level of lead, so we take that very seriously,” said Gray.
The city said a new federal mandate requires them inventory all lead parts and remove them.
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