Residents are still only receiving basic utility bill charges four months after the system that reads and calculates consumption stopped working in the Town of Beaverlodge.
In May, the municipality advised residents that their June utility bill would only reflect the basic charges applied and be missing the consumption charge due to the system failure; the new system was expected to be installed in late July. However, as of September 11th, the system was still out of service, and only the basic charges were reflected on residents’ utility bills.
According to the town, “We have been working diligently contacting the service provider to obtain replacement endpoints in order to get the radio communications working again.”
Once the new system is installed, it will read residents’ consumption levels from May 26th forward and be put on the next billing cycle. Residents and business owners are encouraged to apply more funds than required on their accounts to avoid being hit with a large consumption bill when the system is back in working order.
Residents and business owners are also being encouraged to take a photo of their water meter and send it along with their address to [email protected] before September 28th; this way the readings can be put in manually, and the billing will be accurate.