When Mike Bergeron began his job as water superintendent in 2012, he noticed that about a dozen of the town’s 99 hydrants were no longer in production – making repairs problematic. Starting that year, the water commission made a plan to replace three of those outdated hydrants a year – leaving Bergeron with only one left to bring up-to-date.
“You always want to make an effort to replace your oldest and outdated infrastructure,” explained Bergeron in an interview Friday.
Once replaced, the hydrants are good for 50 years, said Bergeron, but with nearly 100 in town, he’d like to see a replacement cycle, so that two of the hydrants are replaced every year or so.
Hydrant replacements typically run about $3,500 to $4,000, which includes labor. The actual hydrant costs a little over $2,000.
Replacing the hydrants a schedule is similar to the system that the town use for its water meters – the Wilton Water’s “cash registers” as Bergeron termed them. Water meters are not an expensive piece of equipment to replace, said Bergeron, running about $230 a piece. But that cost climbs quickly when there are over 700 meters. When Bergeron came on, current meters were about 20 years old – the end of their useful lifespan – and they had all been installed over the course of about a two-year period, meaning they were all due for replacement at about the same time.
Bergeron and the current water commission have taken a slower approach with the meters, putting aside a budget of about $12,000 per year to replace about 50 meters at a time.
There are other advantages to that approach, said Bergeron – including not being locked into 20-year-old technology as meters are continually improving. For example, the town now has about 100 meters that are capable of being read by radio, rather than having to be physically checked.
“If you’re replacing some every year, you’re always staying up with he latest technologies,” said Bergeron. “If there’s some great improvement in meter reading technology five years down the road, you don’t have to wait.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at asaari@ledgertranscript.com.