I’ll admit, I haven’t paid a water bill in 15 years.
I live in an area that isn’t served by any municipal sewer or water systems, so I rely on a well. Luckily, it’s very good water. Nonetheless, I’ve paid plenty of utility bills in my day and I’ve written about municipal water systems and utility operations for quite a while now.
When I first started with Municipal Sewer & Water, I’d never heard of automated metering infrastructure. It didn’t take long to understand all the advantages it offers. Utilities — and customers — are better able to monitor usage, less labor is required for meter reading and problems can be caught much sooner. That eliminates a lot of headaches.
Still, no metering system is foolproof.
I recently came across a news report about a family in Georgia who found that out the hard way when their water bill jumped from about $150 to nearly $3,000. They called their utility and then their home warranty company, which came out to investigate but found no leaks.
The next month the family’s water bill came in at over $1,150. From there it climbed above $3,000, and came in at over $4,900 the following month. That’s a four-month total of over $12,000 for two retirees with no pool, hot tub or sprinkler system.
So, the family called another plumber to come out and investigate. Again, no leaks were found, but the plumber did find the water meter to be defective. When the family called the utility again to request a billing adjustment, they were denied and told no adjustment was warranted. Keep in mind this is a two-person residence using between 5 and 9 CCFs per month, but the bills in question showed spikes of up to 227 CCFs — 30 times their average monthly usage.
The family appealed to their water and sewer appeals board, according to the report, but were again denied any adjustment. And while the utility had sent someone out to check for leaks, no one from the utility had checked the meter.
When the family’s bill dropped to a more regular charge of $87 the next month, they appealed again and were again denied, with the utility saying it had checked equipment on the site and everything was working properly.
The two members of the appeals board that voted in favor of a billing adjustment noted that the massive spikes just didn’t make sense to them, per the report.
As noted, I haven’t had the opportunity to look at a monthly bill and track my usage in a long time. But this family’s case doesn’t make sense to me either. It shouldn’t make sense to anyone, especially those in the water industry. There were no leaks, and the family obviously wasn’t suddenly using that much water. I don’t know every facet of this case, but it seems fairly obvious there was a metering problem.
Automated metering is a major step forward for the industry, no doubt about that. It’s a shame that in this case those automated readings were taken as infallible when common sense clearly indicates a problem. It’s also too bad this family, which has since filed a petition with the county court, has been put through this.
Water and wastewater utilities face an uphill climb in getting the funding and support they need, and cases like this don’t help. A little more emphasis on customer service could have gone a long way in this instance, and it would have served both sides well.
