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Water utility managers tell House panel AMI meters pose low health and cybersecurity risk, warn broad opt‑out mandates would raise costs
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Summary
Water managers told the House Energy committee that radio‑read water meters in Vermont are one‑way, encrypted signals and that local opt‑out policies exist; they warned that mandatory, retroactive opt‑outs would be operationally disruptive and could shift substantial costs to ratepayers.
Representatives of Vermont water systems told the House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee that radio‑enabled water meters (part of advanced metering infrastructure, or AMI) pose little health or cybersecurity risk to drinking water operations, and they urged caution before imposing statewide opt‑out mandates.
Joe Duncan, general manager of Champlain Water District, described the historic shift from in‑home manual reads to touchpad and radio‑read systems and said the most common radio reads are one‑way, encrypted transmissions that report a meter serial number and a single reading. "I am Joe Duncan, general manager of Champlain Water District," he said, adding that municipal OT (operational technology) systems that run pumps and treatment are typically separated from the Internet. Duncan said the encrypted radio read signals are essentially the meter/account number and a volume reading and that, in his view, "there is a world also too of people trying to get into your IT side of things... but water meters don't pose that... water meters don't pose that."
Duncan and other witnesses told lawmakers that local utilities already provide opt‑out procedures. Champlain reported charging an opt‑out fee of "$75 per reading," collected quarterly, and cautioned that true marginal cost could be higher after factoring labor and route setup. Duncan said his system has about 1,800 accounts and that only one or two customers had sought opt‑out status. Bart Sherman, superintendent of Shelburne Water Department, said his town moved to remote read two years ago to address staffing shortfalls; he told the committee the average water and wastewater operator age in the field is "58 years old," and he linked AMI adoption to reduced labor time and faster leak detection.
Witnesses emphasized practical tradeoffs. They said remote reads reduce thousands of annual man‑hours, enable more frequent billing that can detect leaks earlier and cut large surprise bills, and avoid ongoing monthly cellular charges in favor of lower‑frequency radio technologies. At the same time they warned that a broad, retroactive opt‑out requirement could push utilities back to expensive manual‑reading regimes, increase labor costs, and force rate shifts across customers or large service contracts to maintain outdated equipment.
Committee members pressed on cost allocation. Representative Kathleen James said the state should ensure that customers who choose retroactive removal of an AMI register bear the cost; witnesses agreed that retroactive, uncompensated opt‑outs would be difficult for utilities to absorb. The committee asked witnesses to submit written testimony for the record; the hearing then moved to a separate panel on UL 3,700 standards.
The witnesses cited a Vermont Department of Health report posted online and said VDH has not found a population health risk tied to radio‑read water meters. They also noted device lifespans (meter bodies can last 50+ years while radio register heads are commonly replaced on ~20‑year cycles) and described internal battery and energy‑harvesting approaches used by some registers.
