The water meter replacement and upgrade program in Portage la Prairie has less than one week remaining for its installation period. City of Portage Water Works Committee Chair Wayne Wall says the program will wrap up on June 4th, and notes installation of the new systems has been going smoothly with only a few minor issues at some houses.

"They've been going really well. There were houses where they had to pull in some new wire because the wire that was used to connect the reading device on the outside of the house with the old meters isn't suitable for the new radio meters, so sometimes that requires a little more work. Overall, they're usually done fairly quickly and without any incidents, so it's pretty painless."

With the deadline for booking appointments fast approaching on this Saturday, Wall explains why they want to get everyone's meter upgraded.

"It's quite important to get everyone a replacement meter because there's programming that's in the new meters that all feed back to the station. If the meters aren't upgraded we'll have to go out and manually read just one or two meters scattered around the city, so we'd like to get them all done."

He notes if you haven't upgraded by the June 4th deadline, you may have to pay some extra money for things the program covers for free.

"If, for instance, your valve in the house doesn't shut off and someone from the city has to come out to turn it off on the street, there's a charge for that, but there's no charge for that during this program. If there's a valve that needs replacing inside the house, I know they've been replacing some of those during this program and just charging people for the valve and not the labour, and in the future you'll have to call a plumber to come and do that at your own cost."

If you'd like to book an appointment to have your system upgraded, you can do so by calling 1-800-667-4387 or visit their website.