PUNTA GORDA, Fla. — Punta Gorda residents are now receiving accurate water bills after more than 9,000 of the city's water meters stopped working properly.
The city has successfully implemented manual readings for most of its water meters, ensuring customers receive bills based on actual usage rather than estimates from the previous year.
Watch Fox 4's Alex Orenczuk report an update on the water meter issue in Punta Gorda:
Of the 14,000 Zenner water meters installed across Punta Gorda since 2017, over 9,000 failed to automatically transmit usage data to the billing department as intended.
To address the widespread failure, the city hired a meter reading company in March 2024. With additional help from city employees, almost all water customers have been receiving accurate readings and bills for the past two billing cycles.
"There were about 500 that they couldn't find - they've gotten that down to a remaining 100 approximately and they are working on finding the rest - but for the large part everybody is getting an exact bill based off of their meters," said Greg Julian, Vice-Mayor.
The city is currently conducting a study to determine what meters and technology will be needed to replace the faulty equipment.
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