Revenues at Blytheville Waterworks are up, in part because of a 6-inch meter that is now functioning properly, Waterworks manager Gary Phillips told the Blytheville City Council's Airport and Utilities Committee Tuesday night.
Phillips noted the city wholesales water to Northeast Arkansas and discovered last month the fixed meter registered 4.8 million gallons in less than a full cycle and the bill climbed from $21,000 to $31,000.
"We should start seeing a increase in revenues very soon, within the next month or so," Water plant manager Matt Mosley said. "I know we already have, but our peak season is coming up. That's when we make our money."
Phillips said he is also working on a manual audit of residential and business addresses, matching them with postal service data and researching why some are receiving mail but no water service.
The new Waterworks manager said he is cutting costs as well and anticipates coming in under the $1,149,000 budgeted, $442,000 of which is a bond payment.
Phillips said the department won't spend $20,000 in office supplies or $17,000 in phone service as budgeted.
"I intend to come in under budget when we finish this year out," he said.
Councilman John Musgraves, the Airport and Utilities Committee chairman, asked if meters were being read properly.
Phillips said meters were not read in February because of snow and ice. Instead, Waterworks billed residents a minimum bill, then made the adjustment on the March bill.
Musgraves, who lives in Dogwood, said he has been fielding complaints from residents about their meters not being read and their bills fluctuating.
Once using a trick of putting tape over a meter to confirm that it hadn't been read, Musgraves said he has been told that the bills are estimated at times from the previous month or year.
"If you had a water leak last year does that mean you're going to pay for it this year too?" Councilman Stan Parks asked to chuckles.
Mosley said: "I think what they're doing is they're so small that they're looking at what they pumped and they're just dividing it out by the customers. They're sending everybody an average bill."
Musgraves said he plans to continue looking into the issue
"I don't mind paying my water bill as long as it is fair," he said.
Phillips said he is doing an internal audit to assure all the meters are read.
Currently, he estimates that 95 percent are being read each month.
Phillips pointed out two meter readers are trying read 7,000 domestic meters and 2,300 commercial meters per month.
"These two guys are doing an extraordinary job," Phillips said.
He added he is trying to train others to read meters.
"If we're in a pinch, I'm ready to read meters," Phillips said. "We're trying to get at a place where we can function at 100 percent. We can get there."
Also Tuesday night, Wastewater superintendent Kenneth Ellis told the committee that the "county road lift station" is in desperate need of rehabilitation.
He said the 43-year-old station, located on Byrum Road, is down to one pump. It would cost about $23,000 to rehab a pump, or around $59,000 to rehab the station, Ellis said.
Rehabbing the station would mean putting in two pumps, doing the electrical work and putting on a new roof.
Ellis said he budgeted for the project. Councilwoman Shirley Overman, who chairs the Finance and Purchasing Committee, said the city must make sure the funds are there before the project can proceed.
Ellis said the station affects 30 percent of sewer users in Blytheville.
"If that pump goes down, I'm going to be in emergency mode," he said. "We're going to be scrambling to try to do a bypass."
Also, Ellis told the board that Arkansas Cleaning and Televising of Little Rock is in town to clean and televise the city's sewer, part of a $2.5 million project being mandated by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
He said the company began cleaning and smoke testing on the Arkansas Aeroplex, then moved to the Ward/Normandy area and now is working on the Walker Park area.
First it cleans the lines, then the cameras follow, taking pictures, followed by the smoke testing.
mbrasfield@blythevillecourier.com