Starting Monday, Jennings residents will see city workers taking out people’s water meters.
They’ll be replacing them with new ones that come with updated technology.
The new water system will allow the city to be able to tell just how much water each house or business is using per hour.
City workers will be able to swipe a magnet by the meter and the new software will allow all of the data to be translated into an online graph. Sean Curtis, with Ferguson Water Works, explains.
“[Workers] can zoom in to a certain specific time and [the program will] generate a report that they can actually print out and give to the customer,” says Sean Curtis, Integration Specialist for Ferguson Waterworks. He adds, “Say it’s about 3 am, everyone’s asleep and you still have 30 gallons of water going through the meter. So now you can actually pull up a graph and actually pull up a report.”
Jennings Mayor Henry Guinn says if there is an anomaly in the graph, possibly because of a leak, the homeowner will be notified immediately so it can be fixed, “We have the ability to send out a text message or email alert from City Hall. That’s going to save the residents a lot of money. It’s going to save the city a lot of money from having to produce that water that’s not being consumed.”
And another way the city will be saving money? The new meters will cut down on how long it takes to read them.
“If you look at the man hours that you save with the reading capabilities… To read in half a day versus four weeks, what the taxpayers are going to save will greatly exceed that million dollar price tag.”
The Mayor and Curtis say residents’ day-to-day water usage shouldn’t be affected by switching the meters. They say it only takes about 5 minutes to do the swap.