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Cowlitz County public works selects vendor approach to retrofit water meters; award to appear Tuesday
Summary
Public Works staff recommended an RFP award to add automated remote-reading capability to existing meters using ARPA funds rather than replacing all 1,300 meters, with an estimated contract not to exceed the earlier proposal and expected annual savings of about $18,000 by ending third‑party manual reads.
Savannah Clement, Public Works program manager for Cowlitz County, told the Board the department will present an RFP award for water meter upgrades at Tuesday's meeting after scoring proposals and interviewing the two top vendors. Clement said the county received board-approved ARPA funds for the project and sought proposals in October.
Clement said the county received approval “of ARPA funds to replace our county water meters” up to $550,000 and that the award will be lower than some proposals because the chosen vendor allows the county to retrofit many existing meters rather than buy new ones. “With the vendor we selected, we'll actually be able to use our current meters and just apply ... the automated meter reading, radio head, essentially,” she said.
Clement and a water‑sewer technician, Travis, showed commissioners samples of the meter tops that would be replaced and estimated that of roughly 1,300 total meters in the system, “we already have about a 100 or so of these” newer-style units and “I would say a 1000 would be kind of 1 [piece], couple hundred, just the tops.” She described the selected approach as a retrofit using AMR radio heads so the county would not have to purchase all new meters to gain remote-reading capability.
Clement said ending the county's contract with the third‑party reading agency should yield annual savings of about $18,000 and reduce billing errors. Commissioners asked about the risk of customers receiving unexpectedly large bills after the change. Clement said staff previously handled similar adjustments when the third party underperformed and that the department made customer bill adjustments in those cases.
Clement said warranties for the equipment include a 10‑year battery warranty and a 20‑year meter warranty; she added that meters commonly last longer than warranty periods. She also said the county will use some ARPA funds for replacing damaged meter boxes and bringing connector hardware up to current standards, work the county will do in‑house.
Clement said the recommended contract and unit pricing will appear on the Tuesday agenda; she estimated the originally proposed total was about $425,000 but said the final award will be lower because the county will not replace every meter.
Ending
No formal award was approved at the workshop; Clement said the board will see the formal contract and pricing next Tuesday. Staff said they will bring detailed unit pricing and contract documents to that meeting so commissioners can ask further questions before final approval.
