Nacogdoches City Council approves upgraded water meters

NACOGDOCHES, Texas ( KETK ) – Nacogdoches city council members gave the green light on a new project to improve the city’s water meters on Tuesday night.

“They approved a project to replace our aging water meters that are out in our meter reading system,” said B. D. Rambin, utility building and customer service manager. “The meter reading system was installed in 2008, we were one of the first to do it.”

He said the current system has a life expectancy of 20 years and with the current meters on year 16 of that lifespan, the City is ready for an update.

“We don’t wanna wait until everything actually fails,” said Rambin. “We’ve been putting aside this money since we installed them in 2008. We’ve been putting aside the money because we knew eventually, we would have to replace them all.”

The plan is to replace just under 12,000 meters out of 15,000 thought the city, with no extra cost to city residents.

“We budgeted $4.7 million to replace all the meters that are over 10 years old,” said Todd Simoneaux, City of Nacogdoches interim finance director. “So were not issuing bonds to pay for this, it’s no extra cost to the city.”

The project is still in the planning phase and the new meters are not expected to be installed until next year.

Once things are set in stone, the city said it will notify any affected residents.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KETK.com | FOX51.com.