News

Award Will Save OMWD Ratepayers a Half-Million Dollars

Olivenhain Municipal Water District has been awarded $500,000 in grant funding from United States Bureau of Reclamation for OMWD’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure project. The award was made available through USBR’s Water and Energy Efficiency Research Program for Fiscal Year 2021.

As part of a multi-year plan, OMWD is converting customer meters to AMI technology. Through AMI, meter read data is transmitted to a nearby receiver instead of an OMWD truck driving throughout the service area. Since the AMI system drastically reduces costs associated with meter reading like labor and fuel, OMWD can better control costs while reducing its carbon footprint. Further, customers that are converted to AMI will have access to hourly consumption data, allowing them to better monitor and manage water use at their property. Thus far, OMWD has converted nearly 70% of meters in its service area to AMI technology.

“OMWD’s AMI project provides timely water use data that allows for quick detection of leaks, which will stop water waste and save customers money,” said OMWD Director Bob Topolovac. “Securing this grant funding from USBR offsets a significant portion of what OMWD had budgeted to install over 4,000 meter transmitting units.”

OMWD works aggressively to identify state and federal grant funding opportunities for its projects to minimize the cost of these projects to ratepayers. In 2019, USBR awarded OMWD $300,000 for earlier phases of the AMI project.

Through WaterSMART Grants (Sustain and Manage America’s Resources for Tomorrow), USBR leverages federal and non-federal funding to support projects that result in quantifiable and sustained water savings and support broader water reliability benefits. OMWD will be working with USBR to finalize the grant agreement in the coming months.

More information about OMWD’s AMI project is available at www.olivenhain.com/ami.