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County encountering few snags in water meter installations

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Oxford County's water-metering program is well on its way to completely installing the new water meters in the Tillsonburg area.

So far, the county has replaced over 7,000 meters in total, with 90 per cent of the Tillsonburg area being covered.

Corix Water Products, the company that is replacing the meters, is now moving on to Norwich and South-West Oxford, both of which are about 50 per cent finished.

But not everyone is happy.

Some Norwich residents took to Facebook to voice their grievances with the installation process, talking about having difficulties book ing appointments.

Deb Goudreau, the county's manager of water services, said Oxford hasn't heard any of these complaints first hand.

"We have over 7,000 of these meters installed already, so it seems to be going fairly well," she said. "When you do these types of projects where you have to enter into people's homes, there are some difficulties that do arise and there are some accounts that we probably put on hold while we're addressing other issues."

Booking an appointment online through the county's website (www.oxfordmeter.ca) asks residents to choose a time where they are available. The company will then contact that person with a confirmation on whether that time will work.

Goudreau said she would encourage anyone having issues with this system to contact the county directly at 519-539-9800.

In 2009, the county installed water meters in the City of Woodstock, and Goudreau said this program is the extension of that project.

"We did business cases to review how successful that project had been and we found that the technology is working really well. We're having very few issues with it," she said. "So the decision was made to extend it out to our smaller town ship systems that currently are flat rate as well."

The project is expected to continue until the end of spring of 2017, Goudreau said. The county is currently moving into Blandford-Blenheim to start installing the new meters, before moving into East Zorra-Tavistock and Zorra Township this fall. The county expects to move into Ingersoll early next year.

bchessell@postmedia.com

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