Portage County plans countywide water meter replacement; residents warned of possible temporary shutoffs

Portage County staff told the Board of Commissioners that the county will replace approximately 5,000 water meters beginning in September in a project expected to take about nine months. The county plans to move to a cellular-read system that will allow daily reads and earlier leak detection.

S5 (Agency official) described the scope and logistics: "we have to essentially get in, replace every single meter that we have in the system, which is roughly 5,000 meters, and get them hooked up." He said the contractor, Utility Service Group, will perform much of the administration and outreach and that the county will first send a contact-information request form and later a project notice with QR codes and phone numbers for questions.

Why it matters: the county says the new system will notify customers and staff of unusual usage patterns sooner, preventing very large quarterly bills tied to long-running leaks and removing the need for routine manual meter-reading. S5 added that customers who sign up can receive email alerts and the system should reduce the tenfold billing errors seen in the past.

County outreach and enforcement: S5 said the vendor will mail letters and make phone calls; if customers do not respond after multiple notices the county may proceed to shut off service until an appointment is scheduled. He warned that shutoff valves can sometimes break during shutoffs and said the county will have crews and plumbers available to respond and repair valves. "When we get to the third letter, that's when we're going to have to get a little nastier and warn them, hey, we're going to shut your water off if you don't reach out and make an appointment," S5 said.

Privacy and technical details: S5 addressed anticipated pushback about radio transmissions from smart meters. He characterized the traffic as small and infrequent: "This thing is just transmitting a data packet... it transmits the data packet once or twice a day. It's a real quick, you know, zap." The county noted that similar rollouts for other utilities prompted concerns but that readings occur infrequently.

Next steps: staff will circulate the proposed outreach letter for board review before the mass mailing and will begin hiring and scheduling crews and a water distribution superintendent to oversee repairs. The county expects to begin sending the initial contact-information requests in late spring or early summer and the full replacement rollout in September.