While the cost of water in Connecticut is nowhere as expensive as in other parts of the country, a little waste can add up to some large bills.
Frances of Manchester – who works two jobs – asked for my help to convince her town’s water/sewer department that she should be given a break on her recent bills which skyrocketed to hundreds of dollars a quarter, instead of the usual $50 she had been used to.
It turns out that Frances had a leaky toilet for months without her noticing it. By the time she figured it out and got a plumber to repair it, her water and sewer bill for six months totaled more than $670.
She said she sort of understands the water portion of the bill being higher (though she thinks Manchester water officials should have alerted her that her usage was drastically increasing). But she feels it is really unreasonable to be charged the sewer fee since only clean water was entering the sewer system.
“This whole situation makes me sick to my stomach,” she told me.
“It has created a hardship for me. I am a 55 year old, who is working two jobs to make ends meet, living in a low to moderate income gated community. I have been here for 11 years, and usually have a water bill of about $40 – $50 per quarter. The only city service I get is water & sewer. I pay fees to my association, which covers plowing and garbage collection. I do not have children that use the city school system. My taxes appear to be just as high as everyone else’s even though I do not receive city services. I shudder to think what would happen to a senior citizen on a fixed income if this happened to them.”
“As far as I’m concerned, the water company fell down on the job. It is apparent that my bill should be lower and no one was paying attention. In any job I have had, even if the customer signed off and approved the job, it was still my professional duty to catch the problems and notice the issues because I am the professional and the customer is the consumer looking for me to do the task he cannot.”
The water department did respond to her complaint, offering potential payment plans but refused to reduce her sewer charge.
“You also stated that because the water was clean, you shouldn’t be charged for the sewer portion of the bill. Clean water or not, it was still consumed through your leaky toilet, went into the sewer collection system, and was processed by the Wastewater Treatment Facility. If this charge was waived, it would have to be absorbed by all the other ratepayers,” Ed Soper, Manchester administrator told her in an email.
“It doesn’t seem fair that they should be expected to share the cost for someone else’s internal plumbing leak. Occasionally sewer portions of bills will be waived if there was a leak and the water didn’t make it into the sewer system, such as a flooded basement that gets pumped outside onto the ground.”
I called Francis and I told her that I too was sympathetic to her plight, but that I agreed with Soper’s reasoning.
However, I think that residents who use lots of water for their yards or their pools should not have to pay a dual sewer charge on all the water they use. I think that to be fair, sewer charges should be based on the amount of sewage that is discharged, not on the amount of water used. Anyone have an idea as to how that could be accomplished in a fair manner?
If her water bill was normally $100.00 for six months, and it went to $670.00 for the same time period, she had to hear the toilet running constantly. I also find the amount unbelievable.
When I occasionally drain and refill my built in swimming pool for repairs, it only costs $300.00 for the water, so $570.00 for a leaking toilet seems a little unbelievable.
I also don’t think we should pay for sewerage treatment. Isn’t that what we already pay outrageous state and local taxes for?
In my town in Connecticut, they just started this a couple of years ago. With the already insane taxes we pay, they now bill us yearly for sewerage treatment.
Gotta love our politicians, who are always looking for new ways to get in our pockets.
Glenn
Well george im glad you did not blame aiello,a running toilet can cost homeowners many hundreds of dollars a year .If a person thinks they have a running toilet throw a little food coloring in the tank if it turns color in the bowl you have aleaky toilet.Most of the time it can be a basic flapper depending on the toilet and age.Never touch something your not sure of call your local plumber or supply house,i love home depot/loews as much as the next guy but most of time you have people who give bad advice and who are not licenced plumbers.One more trick go to your basement and find your water meter there is a dial that spins when water is running if it is spinning and nothing is running you have a leak good luck finding those leaks .Im a proud employee of aiello home services thank you
From Kathleen
In Waterford, CT water and sewer customers can contact the Utilities Commission to make arrangements to have a separate meter for outside water usage such as pool and lawn watering. This usage is subtracted from their sewer bill.
In Bristol our annual sewer rate is based on the amount of water used during the winter quarter. That way, you don’t pay sewer fees for watering your lawn or garden in the summer. Seems fair to me.
Richard
A REASONED APPROACH TO AN EXCESSIVE WATER BILL
I read with interest your recent article regarding Frances, a customer of the Manchester Water Dept, who received a $670 water bill due to a toilet leak when her average bill is $50 each quarter. Unlike electric or gas services that you can see or smell when energy is leaking or being wasted—water leaks either through underground pipes or toilets cannot often be detected before much higher bills are the result. Water is considered the “silent service” and when a leak results it could, as in France’s case result in a bill of several hundred or even thousands of dollars. Think about it. The water is delivered under pressure of about 60 psi. When the culprit is the leaking toilet, especially when the water level rises to above the overflow pipe in the water box—that is a leak that cannot be heard and will run 24 hours a day—seven days a week resulting in a tremendously high water bill. Since water utilities typically only bill every three months, thousands of gallons of water can be wasted down the drain until the bill arrives some 3 months later. The pat response from some water utilities is “the water passed through your water meter and the bill has to be paid whether it was used or wasted” . It is a double whammy when towns bill for “sewer usage” whether the water that came from your home was dirty or clean. Typically the water billing consumption is used to determine the amount of your sewer bill. Even with a payment arrangement that may be granted—these bills are a tremendous burden on the homeowner. Most water utilities are not equipped to provide “time of day” readings back from the home to a central office to alert the customer. So called “smart meters” are available in the electric industry — but not in the water business. The normal regimen is for the water utility to send out meter readers every three months or read your meter by radio frequency from a drive by vehicle. This relatively low tech procedure is not the fault of the water utility—it is the way that water service has been provided and billed throughout the country for many, many years.
So, is there a reasonable compromise in the water utility business that could have been offered to Frances? The answer is “YES”. It is called a “courtesy waste adjustment” and is offered by some water utilities in Connecticut, both investor owned and government owned. For instance, the Connecticut Water Water Company, a for profit investor owned water company, providing water to over 50 towns (Manchester is not one of them) offers this type of adjustment. Also, The South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority, providing water to over 100,000 billing customers in many cities and towns in southcentral Connecticut is another. This entity is a not for profit government entity.
There are often some ground rules to qualify for this adjustment. Most ground rules have these characteristics:
1) the water leak has to be fixed and evidence of that provided to the utility
2) water consumption has to be verified as returning to normal patterns after the repair
3) the customer is made aware that this is a “one-time” adjustment and what to monitor in the future throughout the home
If these simple criteria are met than the water utility absorbs 50% of the cost of the water that was wasted over what a normal water bill would be. In Frances’s case her normal bill was $50. The excess bill was $670. The excess amount is $620. The water utility would, therefore, absorb $310 and Frances would be responsible for the other half of the waste or $310 and would be offered a payment plan for that amount.
Why would some water utilities offer this? First, because most customers are not aware of the wasting water and on a “one time basis” should not be responsible for the cost. Second, to promote conservation by having customers get leaks fixed as quickly as possible and, third, to promote good customer relations and making customers more aware of the vigilence necessary to monitor their water using fixtures. Machester is correct that if adjustments are made, the cost would have to passed along to other customers. However, we are talking about a few pennies per year per customer if the costs are passed along. These one-time adjustments per customer are few and far between considering the number of water bills a water utility generates each year. A small price to pay for the benefits and customer service provided to the beleagured homeowner.
As far as the sewer bill is concerned regarding water used for irrigation and pool filling there is also an answer to that problem. Purchase a “private” water meter from your water utility. Have a plumber install it on the water line leading to the pool or irrigation system. Provide semi-annual readings from the private meter to your local wastewater district and they will deduct the amount of this water, which did not go down the public sewer, from your sewer bill.
All in all, a reasoned approach to the “silent service” of potable water and wastewater billing issues.
Marshall T Chiaraluce
Immediate Past Chairman and CEO—The Connecticut Water Company
It is always a shame when a person get such a high bill, but they cannot blame anyone else. The cost of suppling t hat water has to be borne by someone as it is real cost. It should be t he person using it.
As for the sewer charge, it is not like that water was returned in bottles to be used again. It was put into contaminated water and had to be processed like any other sewage water.
As a couresty, it would be nice if the water company gave her a time payment plan and maybe a 5% discount, but they should not take th e loss, nor should it be sparead amongst the other users of the system.
Oh, I’ve also had a leak that took a while to find. I paid the bill with no compllaints as it was my resposibility.
For a fair sewer use charge, try what New Haven WPCA does for its quarterly sewer charge. They take the use quantity from the winter water bill. That becomes the sewer use quantity for all 4 quarters. This eliminates charging for all seasonal water use that won’t be going down the drain (lawn watering, filling swimming pools, et al).
Kevin
New Haven
I live in Berlin and just received a 6 month water bill that boggles the mind. It is FOUR times what I have ever paid in our 5 years of living in town. We came from Fairfield & Cheshire originally, where there is a flat rate water bill system.
We had an irrigation/lawn sprinkler system installed in the summer of 2012, and I expected the bill increase because of this. However,over HALF of this bill is a sewer charge, which is based on our water TOTAL water consumption. So, again….the town is unfairly charging me for water that is not even going to the sewer….its for the lawn and our pool. How can this practice be justified by the town? Any thoughts?
I agree, I got a water bill for 460.00 dollars for 1 quarter. My bill is usually 99 to 125 which is expensive for a single family with only 2 people who conserve water . I went to the waterdepartment and she says they charge 70 percent of the water bill on sewer!!