Town council approves $1.1 million water meter replacement

By Rob Vogt

Water meters in Claresholm have reached the end of life, and must be replaced.
At its Aug. 11 meeting, Claresholm town council awarded a contract for about $1.1 million to replace water meters, after hearing a report from Chief Administrative Officer Abe Tinney.
Referring to a written report, he said the water meters, encoder receiver transmitters, and data collection system used throughout town have reached their end of life.
The water meters were installed beginning in November of 2007. These meters are becoming obsolete and parts for them cannot be purchased.
They are positive displacement meters, meaning they have mechanical moving parts to meter the water flow. After 18 years of service, these meters are losing efficiency, with estimates of 15 to 30 per cent of water flow not captured, leading to lost revenue.
The encoder receiver transmitters that send the signal to the reading device have also reached the end of their life. These devices have sealed internal batteries, that cannot simply be replaced, and they are failing. To date:
• 428 encoder receiver transmitters at a cost of $79,255.44 have been replaced.
• An additional 419 encoder receiver transmitters have failed, as of July 29, that need to be replaced.
• On average an encoder receiver transmitter costs the municipality $200.
• North America has a shortage of encoder receiver transmitters because most municipalities installed water meters at the same time.
• The town has received 250 new encoder receiver transmitters, which were five months backordered, that can be installed, at a material cost of $47,622.50.
• The town has about 1,800 meters in town. With the additional in stock encoder receiver transmitters, if the town replaced what has failed, it will be at roughly one third of encoder receiver transmitters replaced.
The current field collection system being used is also at the end of life, and is being discontinued in early 2028. What this means is the software will no longer be supported.
Itron, the supplier, has recommended all their customers change to a new data collection software system beginning in 2026 to avoid issues.
It was noted the town needs to transition to a new reading software and is reaching a critical point with the water meters and encoder receiver transmitters failing, becoming inefficient and unrepairable at the end of life.
A request for proposal was posted on Alberta Purchasing Connection on July 3, which closed July 31.
Administration received two proposals for the complete replacement of the water metering system – from Neptune and Metercor.
Both vendors are known to the town and have great experience with these projects.
The costing was for a new monitoring software integration and annual subscriptions; a public facing app or program to allow costumers to view water usage on demand; and the supply and installation of cellular transmitters and ultrasonic meters to replace all meters currently in the distribution network.
The prices came back at $953,211.50 and $1,459,366.38.
It was noted both vendors had great proposals and are qualified for the project. After the proposal grading process, where each vendor was graded on four categories – proposal completeness, project experience, schedule/deliverability, and fee schedule – administration recommended awarding the project to Neptune Technologies Group at a cost of $953,211.50.
Neptune had an average score of 94.5 out of 100. Metercor had an average score of 76.75 out of 100.
This price is based on the information given by administration about the current meter inventory and is subject to change depending on actual quantities and provisional costing involved with meter installation.
Administration also recommended this project to be funded from the water utilities reserve.
With the approved budgeted items, projects and transfers accounted for, the reserve will be sitting at approximately $2.35 million at the end of 2025.
Administration also recommended a 15 per cent contingency to be added to the cost of the project, for an additional cost of $142, 981.72, as there was no contingency provided in either proposal.
Council then awarded the water meter replacement and data collection upgrade to Neptune Technologies Group at a cost of $953,211.50 plus GST to be funded by the water and sewer utility reserve.
Council also approved a 15 per cent contingency for the water meter replacement project for $142,981.72 plus GST to be funded by the water and sewer utility reserves.