Water Meters

An article in Wednesday's Carroll editions of The Sun incorrectly stated the cost in Westminster of water and sewer service for a household using 14,000 gallons of water. The correct amount is $66.23.The Sun regrets the error.Water and sewer rates are once more on the agenda for the Manchester Town Council, which meets today at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Hall.Tonight's agenda also includes discussions about a council vacancy, water meters, and a strategic planning workshop.The council has been discussing water and sewer rates for months, however, and it is not clear whether any final decision will be made tonight.

Union Bridge officials announced the resignation of the town's clerk-treasurer yesterday, six weeks after learning that she had sent estimated bills to water customers whose meters were broken, in some cases for years.Town Council members have begun going over records of the town's 300 water customers. They have pledged to work out individual agreements that could involve credits to customers whose current usage indicates they may have been overcharged in the past. Customers who may have been undercharged on estimated bills will not be asked to repay the difference.

The Baltimore City Council unanimously approved a resolution Monday calling on Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's administration to order a halt to the practice of placing liens against homes with unpaid water bills. "This is not to say that people shouldn't pay their bills," said Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young. But he added, "The department's audit presented a lot of troubling things. We can't take the chance that these bills are inaccurate. " The resolution comes after a city audit showed that tens of thousands of households in the city and Baltimore County received incorrect water bills.

Howard County's Department of Public Works will begin a four-year program to update some of its aging infrastructure by replacing the radio transmitters on residents' water meters. The transmitters send data to meter-reading trucks to compute water bills. The current devices use batteries with a 10-year life span, while the replacements should last 20 years. Bureau of Utilities staff will schedule appointments with residents whose water meter is inside their home. For more information, call 410-313-4900 or go to howardcountymd.

Baltimore's Department of Public Works plans to overhaul the way it reads hundreds of thousands of water meters and bill customers after getting complaints that estimated readings were leading to unfairly high bills. Officials described the upgrades Tuesday at a City Council committee hearing where members unanimously approved legislation barring estimated water bills for residential customers, said its sponsor, Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. "I feel certain this is going to address the majority of the kinds of spikes we have seen," she said of high bills.

Hampstead has purchased two new electric route books for use by the town's water meter readers, said Town Manager John A. Riley.He said the hand-held units, called "palmcorders," automatically read the town's newer water meters.With older meters, he said, the meter reader must type the meter reading into the unit."The time saving is when you come back to the office," Mr. Riley said. The palmcorders download all the meter readings directly into the computer system, so office staff do not have to transcribe them.

A recent article about two former Department of Public Works meter readers did not accurately reflect the proactive steps taken by DPW to reduce water meter billing errors ("City official: Lazy workers faked water meter readings," May 15). The agency's new quality control processes were instrumental in identifying, addressing and resolving the issue by removing the two employees from government service before the reporters' inquiry. The truth is that when a pattern of errors emerged in December of 2011, the former employees were confronted, and they were quickly removed.

Two city water meter readers turned in phony numbers in at least two neighborhoods in recent months, the Department of Public Works acknowledged Tuesday, leading to more inaccurate billing by an agency that has been troubled by aging infrastructure and high error rates. As the Bureau of Water and Wastewater tries to correct the mistakes, residents who were undercharged are seeing a spike in their water charges - and officials say they must pay. The latest twist in the city's water billing problems, which have affected at least one in 10 local homeowners, did not go over well in the North Baltimore neighborhood of Homeland, where residents were already angry about the unusually high charges.

For nearly six decades, homeowners here have been used to paying a flat monthly fee for their water.No meter readings to fuss over, no disagreements with the water company.With approval last month of nearly $500,000 in federal and state grant money, the county will be able to build a new water system to replace the Leister family run collection of three wells that have pumped water to about 140 residents here since 1929.But along with the new water system, which will be highly automated rather than hand-operated, will be a new set of rules when it comes to paying the water bill.

Apartment residents hate unmetered water billing because it takes money out of their pockets each month. Landlords love it because it saves them money. Conservationists aren't sure whether it saves or wastes precious water. And, across the country, regulators struggle with whether they should limit or outlaw it for the sake of renters. Now Howard County's political leaders are about to wrestle with the issue as they launch an investigation of unmetered water-billing practices in apartment and condominium complexes.