OKLAHOMA CITY – The Jay Utilities Authority (Authority) received approval for a $1,281,329 loan Tuesday from the Oklahoma Water Resources Board (OWRB) to improve the Authority’s water and gas metering infrastructure. Upgrades to the system will be financed by a 100% principal forgiveness loan through the Oklahoma Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF).
The Authority supplies water and gas to their customers. The current metering process is a driveby automatic meter reading (AMR) end-point system which reads both water and gas usage. These proceeds will be used to update the AMR to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) which will allow portal access to users for the monitoring of usage, to recognize potential leaks, and to encourage conservative consumption practices. The proposed project is to replace 1,166 water meters and 616 gas meters with the AMI system. These steps will help to meet Oklahoma's Water for 2060 goals by focusing on water conservation and efficiency and reducing unintended flows to the wastewater plant.
Joe Freeman, chief of the OWRB’s Financial Assistance Division, calculated that the Authority’s customers will save an estimated $1,825,600 compared to traditional financing.
The CWSRF program is administered by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board with partial funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The CWSRF program has provided approximately $2.4 billion in water quality loans to provide communities the resources necessary to maintain and improve the infrastructure that protects our valuable water resources statewide.
Since 1983, the Oklahoma Water Resources Board has approved over $6.5 billion in loans and grants for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements throughout Oklahoma.
“We are grateful to State Senator Micheal Bergstrom and Representative Josh West, for their support of our financial assistance programs,” said Julie Cunningham, Executive Director of the OWRB.
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Contact:
Joe Freeman
Oklahoma Water Resources Board
(405) 530-8800
Joe.Freeman@owrb.ok.gov
