High, unpredictable water bills anger Columbia residents. A fix is coming, but slowly
Their bills can run up to hundreds of dollars, without a clear idea of what they are being charged for.
Some Columbia water customers are complaining about bills they say are overcharging them for water they aren’t using. The fees they have to pay also can vary wildly month-to-month, seemingly without a connection to the amount of water the home is using.
One bill might jump by $100 from one month to the next, then drop by two-thirds another, users say.
“My bill was $92 last month and $42 this month,” said Rosewood resident Tommie Richardson. “I have no leaks around the house; I had someone check. And I’m one person. Did nothing different from one month to the next.
“Now I don’t know what to expect. I’m seeing people post about 300-400 (dollar) bills, and it’s scary.”
City officials are rolling out what could be a solution to these high and unpredictable water bills: New, high-tech water meters that make it easier to measure water usage accurately and to detect costly leaks. But it could be years before some customers get that fix.
In the meantime, many Columbia water customers continue to scratch their heads over their bills.
Shandon resident Louise Grant said she received a bill for $99 in July, a month when she was out of town. When she returned in August, the total for the month was $42.
“I really think the the water department is charging some people random amounts for their bills, and then when people ask, the department isn’t able to defend them,” Grant said.
A thread on the neighborhood social network Nextdoor drew more than a hundred comments comparing bills, calling for an organized effort to lobby city government and even threatening a class-action lawsuit.
Clint Shealy, Columbia’s assistant city manager for water services, said some customers could be seeing higher bills this time of year because the “summer sewer max” has come to an end.
Shealy says that in summer months, the city caps sewer charges at 1,400 cubic feet because it expects people to use a lot of water on their lawns. But that cap comes off at the end of September, meaning some people could see their bills rise even when it feels like they’re using less water.
“You might see a jump between October and November because it’s been so dry,” and homeowners might still be running their sprinklers, Shealy said.
And some bills might simply be the result of human error. Meters have to be read manually by city workers checking meter boxes on the roadside and entering data into a handheld computer, which leaves open the possibility for a meter to be misread.
“The human eye can transpose a digit or finger the wrong number,” Shealy said. “If a car is parked over the meter and we can’t read it, the bill is estimated, and that can also lead to inaccurate bills.”
Outgoing City Councilman Moe Baddourah said he often was able to get a meter re-read within one or two days when he received a water bill complaint from a resident.
“About half the time, it was some failure on the city’s part, and half the time it was an accurate reading and the customer didn’t realize they had run the sprinklers one day too many,” Baddourah said.
He said many customers’ ire could be mitigated if city residents felt they got a better response from customer service when they called in a complaint.
The city is in the process of rolling out new, digital water meters. The $40 million system is being phased in over the next two years and will allow the city to monitor water usage accurately down to 15-minute increments, said City Councilman Howard Duvall.
One customer, he said, was seeing charges of $800 a month before a smart meter was installed at her home. Then the water department noticed something strange.
“Every night at 11 o’clock, her water use would spike until 4 a.m.,” Duvall said. “And she said, ‘I have an automatic refill on my pool,’ and it turns out it was a problem with the pool technology.”
Shealy says leaks are a problem the city’s current technology — meters that are read once every 30 days — can’t helpfully detect. But the newer smart meters will be able to alert customers to leak-related water spikes almost in real time.
“Most people don’t use the toilet once an hour, every hour,” Shealy said. “If your toilet leaks intermittently, that can run up your bill. ... This is a powerful tool for customers to use to determine leaks.”
Toni Elkins had one of the new digital meters installed at her Heathwood home. In one month, she saw her bill drop from $600 to $200.
“I called the city, the plumbers, everyone I knew the check the thing, and they could not find anything wrong,” Elkins said.
“I didn’t put much faith in (the new meter), but then I got my next bill and said, ‘My God, that must be what’s wrong with everybody!’”
But customers might have to wait a while to get those benefits. Out of 150,000 water meters in the city, only 13,000 meters have been changed in the past six months, and it will likely take another two and a half years to deliver the coup de grace to misread meters.
In the meantime, anyone with questions about their bill can reach the city’s customer service line at 803-545-3300.
This story was originally published December 4, 2019 at 2:00 PM.
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