Water meter readers using radio transmitters

Finding a job reading water meters in Spokane is getting about as easy as finding employment as an elevator operator.

New meter technology over the years already has allowed the city’s reader staff to be cut in half, to eight, said Frank Triplett, the city’s water superintendent.

And new radio transmission technology will erode numbers further.

On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to approve a contract with Itron, the Liberty Lake meter technology company, that will eliminate the need for meter readers to gather information in its West Plains test area.

Already, 400 customer readings were being transferred by radio signals to an antenna at Spokane International Airport as part of the test project run by Itron and the city. The $54,000 contract will expand that to the other 600 or so city customers on the West Plains.

The city is looking at using similar systems on Five Mile Prairie.

“I would anticipate that slowly we would expand it to the rest of the city,” said Brad Blegen, the city’s water director.

Residential meters are read every other month. Commercial ones are examined monthly.

It wasn’t until 1969 that the city began moving water meters from the inside of each house, usually the basement, to the outside so readers could work without entering every home.

Triplett said there could always be a need for one or two readers in a place like Spokane because the hills make radio meter technology difficult in places. But other advancements could still make the job easier, he said.

“You could drive down Main Street at 30 mph and read meters five blocks in each direction,” Triplett said, describing a system that uses meter readers in cars.

The city has 72,000 water customers, many of whom live outside city limits. Blegen said the city has been most focused on using advancements in areas where homes are more widely spaced.

“The meter readers would be doing quite a bit of driving between each customer,” he said. “It cuts down on a lot of transportation costs as well as labor costs.”

In 2004, Itron started the West Plains system for Spokane with a 75 percent discount so the company could test new equipment, Triplett said.

He said technicians originally had difficulty receiving some readings, but those bugs have been fixed. The system has worked smoothly for about a year.

The contract that the City Council will consider Tuesday requires special action because other firms were not allowed to bid on it. Blegen said that’s because no other company makes equipment compatible with the Itron system already running.

Triplett noted, however, that Spokane is not locked into using Itron for the rest of the city and that other locations likely wouldn’t have no-bid contracts.

The high cost of switching to a fully automated system, perhaps $8 million as estimated by Blegen, likely will keep at least a small staff of readers employed long enough to save a decent retirement.

How long?

“Maybe 20 years,” Blegen said.