SAN DIEGO — There's a growing problem across the City of San Diego concerning water bills. CBS 8 is Working for You to find out what's going on, what you can do about it and how the city is working to fix the problem.
CBS 8 went to work for one man in San Diego who says, he hasn't received a water bill since last year.
We've received a flood of emails from viewers since our first story aired of a man in San Carlos with an $11,000 water bill, saying they're having similar issues like not getting bills for a while or their bill is higher than normal with little to no help from the City of San Diego's Water Department.
We went to work for you on this story taking a look at water meters and water bills and we finally heard back from the City of San Diego. But what they had to say may surprise you.
C. K. Littlewood lives in a 900-square-foot home with his wife and says he doesn't understand why his bill more than doubled last November.
"The November bill was $487 and I was obviously very concerned. I immediately thought there's a leak somewhere, so I went out to the water meter to check because I'm familiar with how they work. So, I opened the cover and noted the little flower wasn't spinning. That indicates usage so there's not a leak. I’ve probably called 8 times since last November and there's been no answer or response from them and no response to my email," LIttlewood said.
He continued, "I have not gotten a bill since that bill. Watching your story on the gentleman that got an $11,000 bill my wife looked at me and said, let's hope our next bill isn't worth thousands of dollars. We shut down all of our sprinklers. We haven't used those in two or more years. We're aware San Diego is a coastal desert so we're very water conscious and we're the only two people living here."
With little to no response from the city, Littlewood is left waiting like so many other San Diegans who tell CBS 8, they're going through the same thing.
We reached out to the City of San Diego.
They refused to go on camera but we got an email response back to our questions about what's happening with the water bills.
We let Littlewood take a look at what the city had to say:
"The answer from the utility is currently, more than 90% of customers receive timely bills. Due to staffing challenges the public utilities department is unable to investigate each account immediately."
The city goes on to say they are planning to deploy smart water readers throughout San Diego to help, but that will take years. In the meantime, Littlewood says he still has questions.
"Why does it take so long to contact someone? I can understand a month or maybe two, but I haven't had a bill for almost 11 months. I'm scared to see what the bill will be when they do generate one. It is a problem and it's a big problem for someone to get a bill in the thousands and thousands of dollars and not be expecting it," he said.
The City of San Diego says they're working on an IT system enhancement that would let customers know when there's an issue with their bill that they need to be aware of. That could take some time. Here is the City’s response to CBS 8:
Q: Why bills are on hold for so long and do we use water read meters or smart meters?
A: Currently, more than 90% of Public Utilities customers receive timely bills. Over the past few years, this number has fluctuated between 90 – 98%. It is a goal of the Public Utilities Department to continue improving operations and increase billing timeliness.
Bills are held when a water meter read is significantly outside the typical range based on historic usage, so that Public Utilities staff can manually investigate the account to determine the cause of the abnormal read. Due to staffing challenges, the Public Utilities Department is, unfortunately, unable to investigate each account immediately. We have also had staffing challenges in meter reading in 2023, resulting in more water usage estimates. We have made progress filling more of these positions recently, so a greater percentage of water meters are being read timely, meaning customers will be billed timely.
There are approximately 23,000 Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) meters (also referred to as smart meters) connected to the AMI network and transmitting hourly water usage wirelessly into our system, meaning they don’t need to be manually read. We are developing a plan to deploy these smart meters citywide over the next several years, which will greatly strengthen our meter reading and billing operations.
Q: We know in other counties if a water department notices a significant increase in a bill or high usage, they contact the resident within 48 hours. We are wondering why our city water doesn't have this kind of system. Why aren't they contacting the resident to give them an opportunity to see if there is a leak or what the cause of the high usage is before the bill gets into the thousands. The main question is why does the water department hold on to the bill and information for so long before alerting consumers?
A: The City is currently working on an IT system enhancement that would timely notify customers whenever their bill is held in our billing system.
Here at CBS 8, we're not letting up. We're going to keep asking your questions until we get answers.
At CBS 8, we are always Working for You and our community. This is a station promise that we will go the extra mile to solve a problem our audience can’t solve themselves. We want to hear your ideas on how we can cover and help our community. If you have a story idea, please email us at workingforyou@cbs8.com.
WATCH RELATED: Not receiving water bills? Here’s how to check for leaks and how to contact the City of San Diego