Over the past few years, DeKalb County residents have complained that their water bills were too high and sometimes inaccurate. The county is now installing new technology on its water meters to fix the problem.
Last fall, a Brookhaven homeowners’ association got a water bill for close to $800,000. Dekalb County later reissued the bill for the correct amount of nine dollars.
Dekalb County Department of Watershed Management public relations manager Alicia Pennie said the new technology should take care of billing errors with an electronic signal to receivers placed on top of elevated water tanks.
“These units will allow us to electronically read meters and it will also improve our billing accuracy because it eliminates the human error aspect of meter reading,” Penne said.
Penne said the transmitters will also be able to detect leaks more quickly by monitoring abnormal spikes in water use.
“We want to ensure that they’re getting accurate and timely bills and we want to make sure if there is a problem that this new technology, whether it be a leak, we’ll be able to detect that immediately,” Penne said.
The county plans to install the transmitters on all 135,000 meters in DeKalb County by the end of 2018.
