Council committee advances plan for $1.3 million water‑meter radio‑read upgrade

City staff presented a proposal to upgrade roughly 5,200 of Athens’s approximately 6,000 water meters to radio-read equipment under a Sourcewell cooperative purchasing agreement, asking for authorization not to exceed $1,300,000 split evenly between water and sewer funds.

Speakers stressed this is a utilities-funded project, not paid from the general revenue or income-tax funds. Mayor Patterson noted multiple anticipated benefits: reduced labor (in light of upcoming retirements), lower vehicle fuel use because meter-reading routes would shrink, and the ability to add future telemetry for near-real-time reads to help detect leaks and respond to distribution-line issues more quickly.

Committee members asked about cybersecurity risks and whether meters could be remotely shut off; the mayor said SCADA and telemetry systems for water and wastewater are not connected to the public Internet and that city staff will implement standard protections and firewalls.

The committee indicated consensus to move the proposal forward to a first reading at full council next week for formal consideration and appropriation.