By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

THE Guam Waterworks Authority will continue to install its new automated meters but will not disconnect water service to customers that don’t have shut off valves in place.
The requirement to have customers put up shut off valves has become controversial after GWA earlier threatened to disconnect customers without these valves.
According to GWA, customer shut off valve installation is very important to each customer’s meter and is also important to the success of the utility’s automated meter reading program.
The deadline to put up customer shut off valves was April 1 but GWA now acknowledges that its enforcement of the deadline may have caused much “distraction” in the community, taking the focus off installing the new automated meter readers which is required under the stipulated order.
“Therefore, GWA is going to continue to install the new meters; however, we will not disconnect water service if there is not a shut off valve in place,” the utility announced.
GWA said it is also revisiting its interpretation of the existing regulation relating to customer shut off valves.
But the utility continued to stress the importance of having a customer shut off valve, saying that the existence of the customer shut-off valve or the valve on the customer’s side of the GWA meter allows the customer to control the flow of water in and out of the house.