A highly placed source said there had been a series of tests performed last year on meter installations and it was discovered that the wiring bus connection between the pit pad and meter was not being tightened properly.
The lubricant which was supposed to be used on the threads was often not applied.
The source said this allowed water to enter the electrical connections and possibly leak into the meter electronics, which are in the plastic attached to, and above, the brass portion of the meter.
“At best, water enters the electrical connection and shorts the connections. At worst, the water drains into the circuit board compromising the meter,” the source said.
The spot checking of meter was done on the southern part of the island.
CUC Executive Director Abe Utu Malae said the installation was very simple.
“It is the electronics that failed. The meters were installed successfully in places like the Middle East where it is very dry and no moisture could get into the electronics,” he added.
As of February, there were 1,043 remaining unmetered customers on island.
The source said the earlier batch of meters with displays that supposedly could not be read were actually read by handheld meter reading machines and were accurate.
Over the years, the source said, there were dozens of these supposed “failed” meters taken from the warehouse and tested.
Antonio Muna, then the CUC executive director, refused to make a larger testing of these meters and refused to use the remaining meters in the field for billing purposes, the source said.
The source said many individuals, including friends of highly placed elected officials, have the failed meters and are using them for farms homes and businesses.
An individual associated with billing and administration stated that when CUC replaced the meter on one particular farm, someone would usually come in and claim the meter had failed so the customer was then given a “flat fee” billing by CUC.
The water task force earlier stated that there had been some meters that could be read by any method. These, however, are exceedingly rare occurrences, the source said.
