Your water meter will soon be sharing your water-wasting secrets with government officials four times a day.
Next spring, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will begin installing 5,000 digital water meters that transmit customers’ water consumption data to the SFPUC using a low-frequency radio signal, the agency announced Monday.
The advanced metering infrastructure will eventually be installed for each of the SFPUC’s 170,000 accounts.
The program was approved by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors.
“With California facing long-term threats to our water supplies and natural resources from climate change and population growth, literally every drop of water counts,” SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington said in a statement. “Automated meters will give the SFPUC and our customers more accurate information about water consumption that will help us detect leaks faster.”
Most residential water meters in San Francisco are currently read manually once every two months and commercial meters are read monthly.