Document page with redacted text and symbols, DEP Box 06,

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Final completion has been slowed by customers who refuse to have meters installed, and to some extent by contractual problems. These problems were not considered by either DEP or DEC at the time the Order was negotiated, yet they have caused delays in the substantial completion of meter installations.

These problems, and DEP’s responses, include the following:

Small Residential Properties

The first round of all small meter installation contracts was complete for all neighborhoods in the City by 1998. Completed installations during this “first round” total approximately 82% of all possible installations. Some properties are “unmeterable” for physical reasons at the present time, so the completion rate of “meterable” properties is closer to 90%. Of the remaining properties, 5-10% probably require the installation of pit meters. These installations were left until now so that DEP could issue specialized contracts for that work in each borough. The outdoor pit meter contractors began work in the Bronx and Brooklyn in late Spring 1998 and in Queens and Staten Island during late Summer 1998. 2,106 pit meters have been installed in those four boroughs through July 31, 2001. Indoor small meter contracts began work during the last quarter of 1998. 57,000 meters were installed through December 31, 2001 and work continues at a rate of approximately 500 per month.

Over the last few years DEP has been monitoring pilot installations of “single-jet” type water meters, technology in common use in Europe. The single-jet technology has two advantages over displacement, turbine and compound meter technologies: 1) smaller size, which allows meters to fit in more confined locations, and 2) fewer parts, which suggest less of maintenance burden than compound meters. DEP has begun installing single-jet meters as a substitute for compound meters in some locations as of Fall 2000 and has been using them as a substitute for displacement meters in some confined locations where displacement meters cannot fit. In these cases an outdoor pit installation would otherwise have been the only viable alternative, at greater cost to DEP and inconvenience to the customer. Waiting for the delivery for single-jet meters resulted in a delay of at least several hundred and perhaps several thousand small meters in late 2000 which were installed during the first half of 2001.

Large Residential Properties

Large meter installations have been a different story. Among the large meter contracts that are substantially complete, the average completion rate is only 50%, reflecting primarily a lack of cooperation from multifamily building owners. Although perhaps 5% of the total large properties are “unmeterable” for physical reasons, and a somewhat larger number may be delayed by the need for specialized large meter installations in outdoor vaults, the primary barrier has been non-cooperation among multifamily residential property owners. The “first round” of large

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