The installation of new water meters in Slidell has temporarily been put on hold because of installation mistakes, wrong parts and computer problems, Mayor Ben Morris said.

“There are several problems that have caused delays, and it is making me very unhappy,” Morris said.

Last January, the Slidell City Council approved a $1.9 million bond sale to finance the installation of 11,000 electronic water meters. So far, 5,500 meters have been installed. Of those, Morris estimates that between 500 to 600 of the meters have been installed incorrectly, causing problems with billing and computers. Morris said Triton Inc., the company doing the installations, put the new meters in backwards. He put a halt to any more installations until Triton fixes the problem.

Not only were meters installed backwards, but the wrong washers were used, which caused leaking, and that also led to billing problems because some residents were getting billed for more water than they were using.

The city has wanted to put in the new meters for several years because the majority of old meters were outmoded, leaking and causing inaccurate readings. Public Services Director Mike Noto said the old meters were responsible for a 20 percent loss of potable water in the city. Slidell pumps out 1 million gallons of water a day. Noto said the losses not only mean wasted water, but also a loss of revenue for the city.

The new meters, manufactured by Badger Meter Inc. out of Wisconsin, are electronic and considered much more accurate. Noto said the meters have an accuracy of 99 to 100 percent and are guaranteed for 10 years.

The other advantage of the new meters is they have radio transmitters that transmit readings to one person driving down the street in a truck equipped with a radio receiver and computer. This reduces labor for the city from three meter readers to one. The high accuracy also means fairer water bills and increased water revenue for the city, which will be used to pay off the bond debt for the meters.

However, Morris said the incorrectly installed meters have been sending the wrong readings to the meter reader.

Triton not only installed the meters backwards, but they did not take the last readings for the old meters and put that on the new ones, which meant inaccurate readings. Some residents with the new meters were getting water bills that were double their old bills.

Morris said he had a meeting with Triton this week, and they have agreed to fix the bad installations. Triton will pay for the reinstallations, but the entire project will be put on hold until the problem is repaired. Triton will also put in the correct washers so the meters stop leaking.

Morris said he knew there would be “hiccups” with the project.

“I expected some problems, but nothing of this magnitude,” Morris said.

Another problem that was resolved was getting the computer that took the readings to talk to the city’s main financial computer, and that also has caused some billing complaints. Add to that the city has increased the billing cycle from four weeks to six, and there have been some irate residents receiving high water bills. Morris said the computer problems have been resolved.

He expects the other problems to be fixed in about 10 days, and the rest of the installations can start up again.

The mayor hopes the rest of the new meters can be installed 60-90 days.