All Selma Water Works customers will soon have a brand new water meter.

During its regularly scheduled meeting on Monday, the water works and sewer board announced a start date for its $2.56 million project, which will replace approximately 8,300 water meters. Water board chairman Robert Allen said water meter installation is scheduled to begin on April 11.

City engineering consultant Ray Hogg said customers may experience a brief interruption in service as the meters are installed. Hogg said the interruption shouldn’t take longer than an hour. The installation is expected to take place during the day, as to affect as few customers as possible, Hogg said.

Other water board officials have expressed excitement over the new meters, citing technological upgrades.

“Instead of a man having to physically go out to read a meters, he can take an electronic reading from a four-block radius,” water board member Lee Goodwin said in February. “What would normally take one man two or three days could now be done in one day.”

Allen also said the water meter replacement is an important project for Selma, as many of the city’s water meters are multiple decades old.

“I definitely think it’s something the city needs,” he said

As meters age, they become less accurate, often measuring less water than is actually used, according to Hogg. The newer meters will provide customers with a more realistic measure of the amount used, Hogg said.

The project is funded entirely by a loan through the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.  Half of the loan will function like a grant, meaning the water board won’t have to pay approximately $1.28 million.

The water board awarded bids for the project earlier this month. The bid to furnish the meters came in at $1.6 million to Consolidated Pipe and Supply, of Tallassee. The bid to install the meters went to Mitchell’s Contracting, based in Wilcox County.

Hogg said the entire cost of the project is expected to come in $70,000 under budget, including repainting a water tank in Selfield Industrial Park.

During a March city council meeting, Selma mayor George Evans said some employees expressed concern about layoffs, with improved efficiency. Evans said no city employees would be let go as a result of the new water meters, but may be reassigned to different duties within city government.