Bethany Pickering said she and her family relocated from Little Rock, Arkansas, to a 3,600-square-foot home in the Lake Pointe subdivision July 11.
The family’s first water bill in July—a partial month because of their move—showed 10,000 gallons of water usage, Pickering said. Despite family members traveling during the next month, their August water bill showed 60,000 gallons of water usage that tallied $840.93 in charges, she said. Their latest bill showed the 11-year-old home used almost 100,000 gallons of water in September and included a $1,271 charge.
Pickering said she cannot understand how the family’s water usage was compiled, and—with a husband who travels and a 4-year-old and 13-year-old living in the home—denies using the amount of water stated on her bill.
“We don’t budget for that kind of water bill,” she said. “We are saving for our children’s college. There is no way we are going to stay [in Lake Pointe].”
The Pickerings joined numerous other families at the West Travis County Public Utility Agency’s Oct. 15 meeting to discuss their high water bills with agency directors. At the meeting, by a show of hands, most WTCPUA customers stated they were told by agency staffers that their higher bills were a result of using more water or a leak in their water system.
Water usage
The WTCPUA, which provides water and wastewater services to about 25,000 people in a 225-square-mile area of western Travis and northern Hays counties, experienced a significant increase in customer water use from July through September, General Manager Don Rauschuber said. Its customers’ bills reflected this water use spike, he said.
During the Oct. 15 WTCPUA meeting, board members were repeatedly asked for the source of the high water bills that their customers were seeing. Bee Cave City Council members heard the same concerns at their Oct. 13 meeting.
Rauschuber said, as a result of the drought in Central Texas, the agency went into a mandatory once-a-week watering schedule for customers in July 2013. The restrictions were lifted to twice-weekly watering in June 2015 when area lake levels rose. Dry conditions have persisted across the area throughout the summer.
Since June, utilities have seen elevated water use by customers, and the WTCPUA is no exception, Rauschuber said. The system’s rate tier is designed so water rates increase as a customer’s use increases, thereby creating higher bills with more usage and an incentive for water conservation, he said.
“Customers that put more demand on the system pay more for that demand,” Rauschuber said. “What we found is when you look at customer use in the summer months, over 85 percent is associated with irrigation demands,” he said. “If the customer has a [swimming] pool, it is even higher.”
He said the agency can upload memory chips located in residents’ water meters to determine patterns of water usage.
“When you upload use patterns, [the upload] typically identifies irrigation use,” he said.
Meter discrepancies
Western Travis County residents voiced concern to the West Travis County Public Utility Agency and Bee Cave City Council over higher than average water bills.[/caption]
Bee Cave City Council Member Kara King told the WTCPUA board of trustees that residents had asked for assistance with water bill discrepancies at the Oct. 13 meeting. She said the board can hire an investigator to make sure the gallon usage reported on the WTCPUA customers’ bills is accurate.
“I’m just asking that you do your due diligence and get these people some help,” King said to the WTCPUA board during the Oct. 15 meeting.
WTCPUA President Larry Fox, who is also Municipal Utility District 5 president, said the agency has an issue regarding its customer concerns.
“We have a meter problem,” he said at the Oct. 15 meeting. “There is no question about that. We have to find out the origin of it and how to fix it.”
Rauschuber said the WTCPUA performed an analysis of the agency’s water meters during the last 2 1/2 to three months, replacing more than 300 meters. Staff performed tests to calibrate the meters for accuracy and found all but one reading accurately within its manufacturer specifications, he said.
“It’s not the water meters,” Rauschuber said. “It’s the usage in the system. I am absolutely confident in our meters.”
WTCPUA customer Justin Hobson said a plumber installed two personal water meters at his home after he received higher-than-normal water bills. The meters showed 3,200 gallons of water was used in his home during the monthly billing period, he said. However, the water bill he received for the same period reflected water usage of 15,000 gallons, he said.
Following an August WTCPUA bill showing water usage of 56,000 gallons, Dori Shick said that despite turning off the autoflow to the home’s pool and stopping lawn watering for 40 days, her next monthly bill showed 66,000 gallons of water was used. She said she was told by the WTCPUA staffer who checked her home for leaks that she did not have a leak issue.
“I have three children,” Shick said. “I can’t afford this kind of influx in my bill.”
Spanish Oaks resident Amy Beth Hopkins said her water bill reflected a rise in usage from about 50,000 gallons in August 2014 to 96,000 gallons this past August.
“Something just doesn’t add up,” Hopkins said. “We could move, but who is going to buy the house when your utility bills are that high?”
However, by Oct. 30, Fox said the WTCPUA had tested an additional 50 water meters—bringing the total number of tested meters to 350—and concurred with Rauschuber that only one meter out of the 350 meters tested showed a reading of 3 percent higher water usage than actual water usage.
Fox said the discrepancy between the amount of water billed and used from one year to the next is a result of customers’ “incorrect remembrances and people’s misperceptions” of their water usage.
“When I made my remarks at the meeting, I didn’t have all the details,” Fox said Oct. 30. “It turns out to be much less of a meter problem and more of a usage problem for customers.”
NEW WATER PIPELINE IN THE WORKS[/caption]
