Although, he refused to disclose how the device will work, Bruce Meagar, CUC’s deputy director for water and wastewater, said it has a UV light motion sensitive camera to record water theft.
“We are now in the process of working with the Water Task Force to make sure the meters are registered and working properly,” he said.
Meagar said the installation program is now in progress, and includes an electronic code that will inform meter readers if the meter is being tampered.
He refused to divulge the number of recorded meter tampering cases, but Meagar said meter tampering is a local and federal offense and “if we will catch someone carrying out this act we will persecute him or her to the full extent of the law.”
The Attorney General’s Office is now investigating a meter tampering case, he added
The public, he added, is CUC’s best defense.
“The public should realize that you’re not stealing from CUC – you’re stealing from the rate payers,” Meagar said. “Someone has taken water so someone has to pay for that cost — the rate payers, and we don’t want to see that happen,” he said.
CUC, he added, is doing everything to account for every drop of water that it produces.
According to Meagar, CUC is constantly monitoring possible illegal activities by water consumers and will investigate immediately any discrepancies appearing in a customer’s account.
The metering installation program is funded by a grant from the U.S. Office of Insular Affairs, he said.
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