By Megan Alley
Sun staff

Some Clermont County Water Resources Department customers may see an increase in their water bills after the county upgrades more than 40,000 water meters throughout its distribution area.

The department intends to replace 25,000 old water meters with more accurate equipment that will also allow the new meters to be read remotely. The current meters typically read 5 percent below actual water consumption.

Approximately 17,000 newer meters will be upgraded to include the remote technology.

Currently, the department manually reads about 40,000 meters every two months.

“We’ve had some difficulty over the past few years keeping up with the meter reading,” said Lyle Bloom, director of Water Resources for Clermont County in a presentation to commissioners on April 22. “Due to weather conditions and staffing, it becomes a challenge to keep up with the volume of meter reads. This [upgrade] will allow the department to remotely read the meters, either by drive-by or by radio read.”

The total cost for the project is about $7,000,000, which will come out of fees collected from the water and sewer ratepayers.

Bloom said that even though the county will no longer need to employ meter readers, no jobs would be lost.

“We plan to redirect those positions,” explained Bloom. “Our department has really grown recently, and any reductions in staffing would happen by attrition.”

The county is currently accepting bids for this project, which is to be completed by August 2017.