HAGATNA, GUAM — An official with the organization that oversees the Guam Waterworks Authority (GWA), as well as a spokesman for a manufacturer of water meters used by the waterworks, say that the local newspaper here, the Pacific Daily News, recently incorrectly reported information about the island’s water meter-reading systems.

Simon A. Sanchez II, chairman of the Consolidated Commission on Utilities, the waterworks overseer agency, responded in a November 4 letter to the editor in the Pacific Daily News, commenting on its stories. He said the purpose of the letter is to “correct misperceptions caused” by the stories.

In one of his points, Sanchez referred to an October 22 Pacific Daily News story in which he says the paper “incorrectly reported that 7,000 non-working transponders meant 7,000 water meters were not being read accurately.” Instead, he said, a non-working transponder “does NOT mean the meter is incorrectly reading consumption, only that the auto-transmitting of info to the meter reader was failing. In these cases, GWA crews must read the meter manually but an accurate reading of customer use is still obtained.”

After reporting what was originally written in the Pacific Daily News, WaterTech Online® was contacted by a spokesperson for meter company Metron-Farnier, which was mentioned in the original Pacific Daily News article. Defending his company’s products and service, Metron-Farnier Marketing Manager Ted Worth told WaterTech Online on October 26: “The facts as presented in the article do not reflect the reality of the situation.” Worth also provided a copy of Sanchez’s letter to the editor to WaterTech Online for clarification purposes.

To read the full content of Sanchez’s letter in the Pacific Daily News, click here.

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