Water Meters

The way the town reads water meters is about to change in June, as the mayor and town council consider ways to make the process more accurate.Beginning with the June readings, the town wants to read inside meters rather than those outside the building or rather than relying on estimates, said Mayor Earl A.J. "Tim" Warehime Jr. The councilhas to approve the change before readings can be taken.The town also has to work up what to do in the case of meter reading discrepancies during Wednesday night's regular town council meeting.

Vast amounts of treated drinking water seem to be mysteriously disappearing in various parts of Carroll County.In Westminster, enough water for nearly 5,300 households disappears daily. In South Carroll, customers have been receiving bills for twice the amount of water they used last year. Something very strange indeed is going on.PD Westminster officials say that leaks in the city's pipes accountfor about a third of the 535,200 gallons that disappear daily between the city's water treatment plant and residents' water meters.

Metal-scavenging thieves surprised George Farrant and his neighbors one recent morning. He woke up at 4:30 a.m. and was able to use his water. But when his wife got up for a 6 a.m. jog, nothing came out of the taps. And the Farrants weren't the only ones. Baltimore police are investigating the theft of at least 16 water meters Sept. 10 from Briarclift Road in the Hunting Ridge neighborhood of Southwest Baltimore. They were presumably taken for their copper and brass parts. Around the region, metal objects such as railings, air conditioning parts and manhole covers are often stolen, and law enforcement officials suspect they are sold as scrap.

I want to thank Ms. Nina Platt of Homeland for providing me with a copy of her outrageous water bill - and her neighbor's - because, until this happened, I was feeling left out of the Great Baltimore Water Bill Commiseration. It seems like everybody in the city but me has a goofy and outrageous water bill to brag and gripe about. My bill looks normal, boring and puny compared to what I see here: $813.75 due by May 29 for Ms. Platt, who lives alone, and $1,219.06 for the family of four next door.

150 years ago in The SunAugust 28, 1849: The Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad --The amount of business now doing on this road, far exceeds, both in passenger and tonnage accounts, that of former years. The stock of the company has been increased, and when the connecting railroad with Harrisburg shall have been finished, which will be in a short time, the present revenue of the road will be more than doubled.100 years ago in The SunAugust 30, 1899: The Water Department will take immediate steps to have water meters placed in every building in Baltimore County using city water.

It's apparent that there are many problems in Baltimore's water system as managed by the Department of Public Works. The situation in the field is way out of date, and the entire billing system should be computerized. At most other locations in the country, water districts have interior water meters with electronic exterior readouts and have had them for the past 15 to 20 years. This arrangement is accompanied by a shut-off valve on the water service lateral located at the property line at the street.

Kathleen Kreimer thought she was a pretty good judge of her Union Bridge neighbors and their habits, so it never occurred to her to tell them that she was only guessing when she made out some of their water bills.Now the veteran town clerk is on unpaid leave as Town Council members review customer accounts and the Maryland attorney general awaits their explanation.It seems that 55 meters, more than one-sixth of the town's 300 meters, are not working. Some meters have been stuck for years; in one case, 14 years.

As Baltimore's Public Works Department issues more than $4.2 million in water bill refunds, Howard County officials say they will likely avoid similar issues because of recent upgrades to the county billing system. "We just finished a total upgrade of our water billing system in the last two years; we do not use the same system Baltimore uses," county spokesman Kevin Enright wrote in an email. He said the error rates are now at 1 percent. Water meters are read and transferred electronically using a radio interface.

The City of Westminster's water department loses more than one of every four gallons of water that go through the city treatment plant.But city officials aren't sure exactly what happens to 27 percent of the water between the time it enters the treatment plant and the time it arrives -- or fails to arrive -- at customers' faucets.They suspect much of the problem is in an aging delivery system."That for me is an intolerable percentage," Council President William F. Haifley said when he saw a public works report that showed the city unable to account for 582,000 of the 2.1 million gallons pumped into the system daily in 1992.

At Jack D. Hesson's retirement party last month, one of his co-workers in the Westminster water department gave him a painting of a man whose keys and papers are scattering while he tries to extricate the seat of his pants from a dog's jaws."