Hingham Water Board Awards $2.3 Million AMI Contract to Ty Sales

HINGHAM — May 19, 2026 — Hingham approves $2.3 million water meter upgrade and activates drought restrictions. The Board of Water Commissioners voted unanimously 3-0 Tuesday to award a 36-month advanced metering infrastructure contract to Ty Sales, LLC, of Sudbury, in an amount not to exceed $2,298,153.78, replacing the town's drive-by radio meter-reading system with a fixed-collector network that will supply daily consumption data for all roughly 3,000 connections in the district. Water Superintendent Russell Tierney said the award followed a seven-bid Chapter 30B procurement that was so competitive between the top two finalists that the department retained outside firm American Water Meter Advisors, LLC, as a peer reviewer — whose independent analysis agreed with staff's ultimate recommendation. Collectors are expected to go live in July, with live data flowing by September. Separately, Level 1 mild drought restrictions took effect the same evening, banning Sunday irrigation and limiting watering by odd-even address schedule; Tierney noted the new AMI system will allow automatic detection of irrigation violations for the first time. The town's unaccounted-for water rate has fallen from roughly 23 percent in 2020 to 14.8 percent today.