San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD) has been awarded a $100,000 grant to update hundreds of water meters in Ben Lomond.
The funding from the Federal Bureau of Reclamation will replace 443 water meters. The new meters will help customers “detect water leaks faster, which will save them money and reduce water waste,” according to SLVWD.
SLVWD is one of 36 projects across the United States that was awarded funding through this program.
Beginning in July, the District will replace aging meters in Ben Lomond with Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) meters. This area of SLVWD has larger parcel sizes, many outdated meters and, because of sandy soil, leaks are difficult to detect.
Since 2016, SLVWD has been working to upgrade its water meters to AMI meters. However, progress on meter replacement was significantly slowed following the 2020 CZU Fire, which devastated the District’s water infrastructure.
Nearly half of the District’s 7,960 water meters have been replaced with AMI meters to date. AMI meters provide remote data collection using cellular data, allowing for frequent and accurate water use data.
“The water meter upgrade project is one of many improvement projects happening across the San Lorenzo Valley Water District to update aging infrastructure, including replacing undersized pipelines, hardening against wildfires, ensuring more reliable water infrastructure and adding fire hydrants to improve water supply resiliency and increase firefighting capabilities,” stated the District.
