SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Water System has already installed digital meters that can monitor hourly water usage for nearly half of its customers.
The city-owned water utility replaced its 300,000th Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) meter Tuesday as part of its “ConnectH20″ program. Officials say they are on track to replace all customer meters — a little over 610,000 — by the end of 2025, about a year earlier than originally expected.
The AMI meters allow both the utility and its customers to track their water usage hour-by-hour instead of through a monthly manual reading.
SAWS Vice-President of Customer Experience & Strategic Initiatives Cecilia Velasquez says the constant monitoring makes it easier to spot a leak quickly. Any account with continuous usage of five gallons per hour over the course of two days will receive a robocall, an email, and a text message.
However, the constant monitoring also makes it easy for SAWS to see if someone is violating drought restrictions by using their irrigation system on the wrong day or time.
Citations for that can range from $137 to $500, depending on how many times someone has been caught, but Velasquez said they only use the data to send “gentle reminders” to potential violators. About half of the customers who get those notices “change their usage patterns to come back into full compliance again.”
Asked by KSAT whether SAWS planned to use the data for its enforcement efforts, Velasquez said, “I think as the EAA (Edwards Aquifer Authority), if they ever again move to the next stage of drought and we then have to make some hard decisions, I think this would be one of those decisions that we would make.”
Velasquez said there are “no plans in the near future” to use the meter data that way.
A SAWS spokesman also told KSAT the data would “never” be used as the “sole reason” for a citation. SAWS would also need to see a violation in person.