Village of East Williston residents can now monitor their water usage from a smartphone if they’re willing to pay.
For fees starting at $232, the village is installing new electronic water meters that will make readings simpler and save residents money, Mayor David Tanner said.
“This way, if you have the meter, you can tell if you’re using a lot of water,” village Trustee Christopher Siciliano said.
The new meters can be read remotely, allowing residents to track water usage more easily and allowing the village to read meters without entering homes, Tanner said.
The village will replace outdated meters as needed and install new ones if residents request an upgrade, according to an Aug. 7 letter Tanner sent to residents. The installation charge runs from $232 for a five-eighths-of-an-inch water main to $629 for a two-inch main, the letter says.
Several residents requested new meters so they could know if their pipes were leaking while traveling, Tanner said. Some have returned from vacations in the winter to find their homes flooded from burst pipes, which they can now detect by checking their meters remotely, Siciliano said.
A resident at Monday’s village Board of Trustees meeting asked why the village is charging to install equipment it owns when other utlity companies would install new meters for free.
The new meters are still optional, and installation fees help defray the village’s cost of upgrading its meter system, Tanner said. Homeowners are also generally responsible for water infrastructure on their property, Trustee Anthony Casella said.
“We had a lot of people come to us requesting a service like this,” Tanner said. “In order to meet that need without having a big direct cost impact, this is the way the board decided to handle it, and there’s a benefit associated with it.”
East Williston is also considering a law that would penalize contractors who open fire hydrants without village permission.
The law would require a village permit and the presence of a village employee to open a hydrant. Opening a hydrant without a permit would carry an initial $500 fine that increases to $1,000 and $2,000 for the second and third violations within a year.
Utility contractors have opened hydrants in recent months without any notice, which causes a decrease in water pressure that disturbs rust in pipes and turns residents’ water brown, Tanner said.
“It’s happened a couple times, but when it happens it’s very disruptive,” Tanner said.
The village Board of Trustees will hold a public hearing on the new law on Sept. 12 at 8 p.m.
