Speakout 471-6636

Partially right?

This is in response to Sikeston BMU Water billing and reading. My water meter clearly reads on the face of the meter Neptune Company and measures in gallons. I know a little about water meters. When I was a young farmer and the cost of farm herbicides and pesticides were rising, I decided it was time to quit guessing at my water and chemical formulations and get really precise. I learned this from Aerial Application from East Prairie. He had water meters at all his landing strips. So I drove to Memphis and bought a water meter made by Hershey at a cost of $900. It measured in gallons down to one-tenth of a gallon, as your water meter does. I have checked my water meter daily. I don't use that much water. I live alone. Also, I have never heard of meter units. Only meter units that I have heard of are for natural or LP gas. If I'm wrong, please teach me. I love to learn something every day. I have talked to several people who have a higher education than me, that the only way to measure water is in liters. Just the net you are charging the citizens of Sikeston, and me, is 100 times more water than we are using. I went in several months ago on another issue. They corrected my bill and the best I could get out of BMU, I was partially right. How are you partially right? It's like you're partially pregnant.

You are partially right. Your water meter is made by Neptune and it does read in gallons. However, your understanding of how we read the meter may not be right. Our residential water meters display a total of 7 digits, set up like an odometer. The far right digit is the ones digit. The other digits moving to the left are tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands and the far left digit is millions. Because we bill per thousand gallons we really don't need to read down to the single gallon so we read our meters to the hundred gallon digit on the meter. As an example, when our meter reader reads your meter and the seven digits displayed are 0990120 he will only record 09901, just down to the hundreds digit. Your previous month's reading is then subtracted and that result is multiplied by the 100 multiplier to arrive at your gallons (remember, we only read your meter to the hundred gallons digit). For a look at the face of one of our water meters and more meter information go to our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sikeston-Board-of-Municipal-Utilities/95827370752... . Or, stop by our office at 107 E. Malone Avenue. Our customer service representatives are always available to answer any questions.-- Rick Landers, BMU