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Smithville council hears that AMI meters are failing after manufacturer ends support; staff directed to return with options
Summary
Amoresco told the Smithville City Council that water meters tested in 2022 averaged roughly 79% accuracy and the meter manufacturer has phased out support for the electric subsystem. Council directed the city manager to return next month with options including full replacement, partial replacement, or continued manual reads.
On Jan. 12, 2026, the Smithville City Council heard a detailed update on the city's advanced metering infrastructure from Chad Nobles of Amoresco, who said the system the city installed under a 2015 contract has suffered repeated endpoint and radio failures and that the manufacturer has begun phasing out support for the electric‑meter side.
Nobles told the council the 2015 contract included guarantees for meter accuracy (a 98.5% standard on water meters) and measurement‑and‑verification language tied to lighting savings. Field testing in 2022, he said, showed water meters reading about "79% on average," well below the contract guarantee, and many endpoint radios and handheld read devices have failed or become obsolete.
"When we tested it five years ago it was 70‑something percent accurate," Nobles said, and later added, "they read 79% on average." He described a fragmented situation in which the electric and water systems are effectively running on two different, partially unsupported platforms and a mesh‑network design means an electric‑meter failure can prevent reads from nearby water meters.
City staff materials cited remaining financing on the original project: approximately $1.2 million of the original $2.4 million remains, according to the council packet. Council members pressed for clarity on lost revenue, warranty limits and potential legal recourse; Nobles said pursuing the manufacturer (Mueller) is possible but complicated by warranty terms and by the need to test individual meters to quantify lost revenue for each account.
Nobles laid out three principal options for the council: 1) continue the status quo and accept manual reading and degraded data, 2) replace only the electric side while leaving the water system in place, or 3) perform a full replacement of both water and electric metering into a single modern platform (his professional recommendation). He estimated a full replacement could cost in the industry range of roughly $1.8 million to $3 million, with a full replacement nearer $3 million.
After questions from council, Mayor Sharon Forester and others thanked Nobles for the presentation and the council directed the city manager to return to the next meeting with specific options and cost estimates and to explore closed‑session legal options regarding manufacturer liability. "We'll direct the city manager to bring us some more information as what options do we have going forward," the mayor said.
The council did not vote on procurement or litigation at the Jan. 12 meeting; staff will return with a formal proposal and recommended next steps.
