By STEVE HARRISON
The Charlotte Observer

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities said it has shifted 10 employees to help identify and investigate possibly erroneous water bills, but the utility said it’s not planning to speed up the replacement of an electronic transmitter that has caused bad meter readings.

The utility has been besieged by complaints from residents who said their bills have mysteriously spiked – often from an average of $30 or $40 month to hundreds of dollars. Many said they struggled to get CMUD to investigate, and had to fight to keep their water from being turned off if they didn’t pay the bill.

The Observer reported Sunday, Jan. 24 (“High water bills remain a puzzle: Dramatic spikes in bills are traced to equipment glitches, too few staffers to investigate”), that the utility has a computer program that flags unusual bills so incorrect usage can be corrected before the bills are put in the mail. But many of those flagged bills were never investigated, burdening homeowners with bills for as much as $1,100 for one month.

Some of the problems were later discovered to be caused by a faulty electronic transmitter. Transmitters are attached to mechanical water meters and designed to count the number of hundred cubic feet of water a customer uses. A CMU truck equipped with a computer drives through neighborhoods, collecting the usage data sent by the transmitters.

But in many cases, the transmitters miscount how much water was used.

Of CMUD’s 250,000 water meters, 150,000 are connected to an older transmitter that has a failure rate of 6.4 percent, according to CMU. Newer transmitters have a failure rate of 0.03 percent, the utility said.

CMU director Doug Bean said the utility is meeting with the transmitter manufacturer, Washington-state based Itron, to help identify problems.

“They have been helpful,” Bean said. “They have been helpful to try and determine if there is a small subset of these (transmitters) that have a problem.”

In a Jan. 15 memo to the Charlotte City Council, CMU understated the problem with the transmitters. The utility said the transmitters sometimes undercount water usage, and that CMU might later correct a bill, resulting in a “spike.”

During an examination of two weeks of high bill complaints from early November, the Observer found numerous examples where transmitters appeared to begin overcounting on their own.

At one house in east Charlotte, a homeowner’s reported usage skyrocketed to eight times her historical monthly usage. CMUD’s computers flagged the account, but the utility declined to investigate.

With 150,000 of the older transmitters still in use, and a 6.4 percent chance of them failing at one point, there is the potential for thousands of erroneous bills that could be sent to customers.

To attempt and catch those erroneous readings, CMUD has created what it calls a “second level” of people who examine flagged accounts.

CMUD said its computers flag about 50,000 accounts each month – one-fifth of all meters in the county. A team of three people then review the accounts to determine if they should be investigated by the utility. The utility said it then conducts about 8,500 “check-reads” a month.

Bean said the team of three people will forward more accounts for possible review. Another person will then review those accounts closely to determine if a check-read should be performed. The person will focus on unusually high bills.

“We want to make sure we are putting more eyes on it,” Bean said.

CMU currently has three staff employees and five contract workers from Itron conducting check-reads. It will add four additional people.

If a customer receives a bill that’s too high, CMU may conduct what it calls a “high-bill investigation.” It currently has three to four people doing those checks, and will add five additional employees.

CMU also said it’s trying to improve customer service when people complain. A number of customers with high bills have told the Observer they were told to check for leaks and call a plumber. One woman with an erroneous bill for over $1,000 was told she could be put on a payment plan – but she had to pay.

Bean said people who have had unusually high water bills in the past can call 311 and ask for a high-bill investigation.

Ed Hagen is one of those customers. He said his normal water bill was 6-8 CCFs – hundred cubic feet – but his October 2008 bill recorded 37 CCFs. He said he was out of the country during the billing period and his irrigation system wasn’t turned on.

He said he both wrote and phoned the utility to complain.

“I received a form letter stating they ‘did not see an increase in water usage’ and that ‘water usage can fluctuate slightly…” Did they not read my letter?” Hagen wrote in an e-mail to the Observer.

Fred Guin said a second home he owns in south Charlotte showed he used nearly 90 CCFs in September, while the previous six months had all been under 10 CCFs.

Guin wrote: “Arguing with the water department has been a waste of energy.”

RELATED LINKS

Charlotte Mecklenburg Utilities

Jan. 24, 2010,  “High water bills remain a puzzle: Dramatic spikes in bills are traced to equipment glitches, too few staffers to investigate”

Dec. 10, 2009, DavidsonNews.net, “No answers, but CMU promises to solve high water bills.”

Dec. 4, 2009, DavidsonNews.net,  “Wednesday meeting seeks answers on high water bills.”