Marfa
The city is moving forward with some 1,400 installations of water meters that transmit usage back to a base station automatically, without the need for meter readers. The city had an initial look at smart meters in the spring of 2024 and tested a pilot project last year.
With the new meters, expected to be installed throughout Marfa by early fall, customers will be able to log in online to view water usage and billing, and city officials hope the meters will install more transparency and confidence on how bills are calculated.
On March 10, the City Council awarded an $800,000 contract to Premier Waterworks of Lubbock for the installations. A tax increase to pay for bonds will fund the project. Three companies bid on the project, with one other, Core & Main of St. Louis, coming in near the same price, but that bidder scored lower on evaluations by city officials. The cost for the project is the same as projected in 2024.
“It looks like it’ll be a very good thing because it will free up employees in the water department to do things more important than meter reading,” Councilmember Mark Morrison said. He added that there are frequent alerts if a meter stops transmitting, and the actual meter stores data so that it can update the base station when up and running again.
“I’m glad to see the project moving forward,” said Councilmember Travis Acreman. “I know that it’s going to bring a lot of benefits to our utility customers, both in terms of their access to and transparency of information and security of knowing how water is being used, if there’s a leak, and just making sure that issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.”
Councilmember Raul Lara said the meters are needed to address customer complaints about unusually high bills and not trusting the way their meters have been read. However, Lara, who cast a vote against the tax increase in October, said his main objection was including two high-price projects in the same budget year. “It’s coming. I just hate that we did two projects in one,” he said. “We should have done one in each budget.”
The city has installed more than 125 smart meters already with Premier Waterworks in an effort to make progress on replacing old meters, although the online portal will not be available until the bulk of meters is in place.
The meters will transmit information back to a base via radio frequencies. Premier Waterworks first will acquire FCC permission for the frequency, which then will be programmed for each meter. That process should take a few weeks, then installations will begin.