LAWTON – The city’s Meter Services Division is responsible for maintaining 33,822 water meters (29,970 of which are on active customer accounts) and water consumption reading equipment throughout the community.
A meter replacement project that’s underway “aims to replace half” of the active meters with “new meters and radios that provide electronic communication from the meter to the city’s Utility Services Division,” Public Utilities Director Rusty Whisenhunt told the City Council recently.
Older-style meters “were made from brass” and water usage was measured mechanically “by a wheel that turned,” Whisenhunt said. Water losses of 10% to 12% from conventional, mechanical meters that last about 15 years are “the national standard,” he said.
The new meters are more durable and are “signal- based,” which makes them more accurate than the older units, he said. The new ones have a guaranteed lifespan of 20 years and produce water usage readings that are accurate within a 1% margin of error, Whisenhunt said.
“We are always performing maintenance on the meter reading system, replacing dead meters,” Meter Services Superintendent Mark Moore told Southwest Ledger.
“Each year we budget to replace some high users and dead meters. We hope to change out another 5,000 to 6,000 in 2025 and finish up in 2026, depending on how much free time we have to work on them.” Not all meters in the city are antiquated, Moore said. “We replace them when needed.”
After the project is complete, “We will audit what we have left that needs to be replaced and look for additional funding, if needed,” he said. “Keep in mind: If we replaced a meter with an ultrasonic five years ago, that meter will not need to be replaced another 10 to 15 years.” The Sensus iPERL residential smart meter has a 20-year accuracy warranty,” Moore said, “so if the meter fails for any reason during that time, it will be replaced by the manufacturer.”
A new 5/8-inch residential water meter, a common size for houses, costs the City of Lawton $110 for the unit and $110 for the radio attached to it, Moore said. Residential meters that are 1-inch cost $150 apiece. The meters are available at that price “only because we placed the order in bulk,” Moore said. Purchasing a meter outside of a bulk-buy contract would be more expensive. “The price varies on the quantity we purchase.”
Meters of up to 8 and 10 inches – for water lines that serve large consumers such as industrial customers and apartment complexes, for example – cost $8,000 to $10,000 each, Whisenhunt said.
“We have four of those in our system,” Moore said. “Three have already been replaced: at Bar S Foods, the Geronimo master meter, and the Pecan Valley master meter.” The one remaining to be switched out serves Rural Water District 2, which feeds Medicine Park east to the Love’s Travel Stop, “and it will be replaced soon,” Moore said.
The city has a few 10-inch water meters. Those include one at Comanche County Memorial Hospital and three that feed Fort Sill “which have already been replaced with the new technology ultrasonic meters,” Moore said.
The 10-inch meters cost the city about $10,000 “but are around $12,000 to purchase now,” he said.
The city paid for two of the larger meters, Moore said. “We were allowed to beta test the other meter before it was released to the general public. We worked daily with the engineers, supplying them with readings and feedback,” Moore related, “and so we got that meter for free after it was tested and proven to work accurately.”
As of August, 5,000 older meters had been replaced with new units equipped with radios, Whisenhunt said. In addition, 15,000 new meters and 8,000 radios for them are on hand, awaiting installation, and 2,000 more radios are “on order,” he said.
To “accelerate the meter replacement project,” contractors are installing the new meters while building new water lines or replacing old lines, Whisenhunt said. Approximately 26 miles of water lines in Lawton have been replaced, are under construction or in the planning and design stage, city officials have said.
“Our goal is replacement of 500 water meters each month,” he said.
By the end of August all water meters had been replaced in the areas bounded by Gore Boulevard north to Cache Road, from Railroad Street west to Sheridan Road, Whisenhunt indicated.
The city budgeted $5 million for the meter replacement program; of that sum, almost $4.5 million has been spent and a little over $500,000 remains, records reflect. “The remainder will go fast,” Moore told the Ledger on Sept. 27. “We received 900 radio this week, at a price of $110 each.”
The project is being financed from a $72 million Clean Water State Revolving Fund loan, and the debt is being repaid from 2019 Capital Improvement Program water and wastewater funds, Whisenhunt said.