Editor:
I appreciate the interest shown in the water metering program by the letter writer (“Meters a myopic strategy”) in last week’s paper. I want to address some of what they had to say.
Meters are more than leak detectors. First and foremost, water meters give residents information about how much water they use. How can we manage our water use if we aren’t measuring it? It’s known that residents with access to their water use data are more likely to save water. Water meters also help us remain cost-efficient as the SCRD expands supply, like the Church Road Well, because we can offset the future cost of water infrastructure projects and not overbuild.
I agree with the letter writer that acoustic leak detection is popular and economical – this is why we are using it to help residents who cannot quickly resolve an ongoing leak. This year, we will purchase more modern equipment so we can do this even better and help find leaks in our own water distribution system.
An expansion of the use of acoustic leak detection on every property is not being considered by the SCRD. Why? Well, with 11,000 commercial and residential properties on SCRD water, we estimated it would take two staff a year to survey all the properties to check for leaks only once. This is less efficient compared to one staff member that can easily collect both water use and leak information by reading all meters on the Coast every month, in just a few days.
We are focusing our resources on building infrastructure for a growing region and changing climate. Water meters will help protect our current and future water supply, so that we know water we treat is not wasted.
Remko Rosenboom,
General Manager of Infrastructure Services,
Sunshine Coast Regional District