New meter reading system for the water district

Sun Valley Water is implementing a radio-read meter system from Neptune.  We started with 40 meters installed in Little Creek subdivision and are working into the Sun Valley subdivision as funds allow us to buy additional meters. Your April water bill came from reading meters using this new system.  You may have seen Joe Buchanan and Sharon Stewart out reading  meters together on April 23. (PS-if you find a Tasmanian Devil watch in your yard - call Sharon, please.)

Out learning the "Nomad" hand-held radio read: Joe Buchanan, System Operator; Marc Stewart, Vice-Chairman SVW&SD Board; and Matt Wheaton from HD Supply.  Not shown is bookkeeper Sharon Stewart (the photographer).

Background Information - How we got the first 40 meters, the Nomad, software, and training:
Chairman Jim Miller contacted our NM State Representative, Zach Cook, with a SVWSD
legislative capital outlay request, and asked that Sun Valley be placed in the
queue to receive a share of legislatively appropriated funds for Cook’s district.
Cook was able to secure $20,000 for SVWSD to start a project replacing older
water meters to new ARM meters, which will be invaluable in the district’s high
altitude, hilly terrain that is often covered with snow in the winter. Miller also
contacted the Ruidoso High School Ag Mechanic’s shop program about paying
students to cut holes in existing SVWSD meter lids to enable ARM antenna usage.
This community outreach program gave shop students a lesson in cutting cast iron
with a plasma cutter, in ARM water meter technology, and earned the shop
program some needed funding.