By Mike Kruzman / news@whmi.com


One area municipality has approved the purchase of over half a million dollars on water meters and upgrades.

At Monday’s meeting, Linden City Council members were split on the decision to spend just over $520,000 on the project. The purchase was approved by a slim 4 to 3 margin meaning Ferguson Water Works will now install a fixed base water meter reading system. According to the Tri-County Times, 925 of the City’s 1,700 water meters will be replaced with new Neptune meters which are said to be more efficient than the meters those users are currently on. The remaining 775 have been replaced in recent years, leaving the oldest ones needing the upgrade.

One of the benefits of the new Neptune model is that they can detect leaks, reverse flows and misreads. There have been instances where users on the old system have had leaks that went undiscovered for long periods of time, resulting in a surprising and high water bill. New software will also make available real-time reads and store data in the cloud for 96 days.

Voting in favor were Mayor Danielle Cusson, Mayor Pro-Tem Brenda Simmons, Ray Culbert, and Pamela Howd. City Council members opposed were Heather MacDermaid, Aaron Wiens, Brad Dick.