HOUSTON – Big developments are underway to address the ongoing water bill issues in Houston.
During Tuesday’s city council meeting, newly-elected Mayor John Whitmire discussed his plans to provide relief for residents facing unexplained and excessively high water bills.
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Whitmire acknowledged the concerns raised by two Houstonians during the council meeting and expressed his determination to find a solution.
“We will get there even if I have to replace the entire Public Works,” Whitmire responded.
While originally planning to release his high water bill relief plan this week, Whitmire decided to postpone its announcement. He expressed dissatisfaction with the plan presented to him by Houston Public Works, stating that it had some gaps and is still not up to par.
“I did not like the plan that was presented to me yesterday because it had some gaps,” Whitmire said. “It is still not where it needs to be.”
New water bill relief plan will deal with broken sensors
Despite not releasing the plan, Whitmire did reveal some of what water customers may have to look forward to.
Whitmire said there are 100,000 broken remote read water sensors throughout the city of Houston. When the sensors fail to send your meter reading to the water department, they estimate your water usage. This is causing thousands of inaccurate bills. In many instances, the water department is estimating or only billing customers base water charges for many consecutive months. When the city does get an actual meter reading, the customer may receive an unexpected big catch-up bill. .
“The goal is to replace those sensors. 100,000. That’s 20% of the 500,000 that receive billings from the city. The system I inherited had a goal of replacing them within five years. We moved it up to the next nine months by next January.”
When former Mayor Sylvester Turner was in office, Public Works detailed a plan to replace those sensors in the next five years, but according to Whitmire, his new plan aims to replace those sensors in the next nine months.
To be clear, while Mayor Whitmire says 100,000 remote read sensors are not working now, Public Works says more are failing every day. All 500,000 are past their life span and overdue for replacement. In December, Public Works Director Carol Haddock told City Council what started as a 5-year replacement plan is now expected to take 10 years.
“Our goal is fair and truthful billing,” Whitmire said.
He also added that customers who receive high water bills should take their three lowest water bills from 2023 and average them to get their correct billing cost.
What ordinances were passed last year related to water bills?
In December, then-Mayor Sylvester Turner released changes to several ordinances related to water bills. Some of those changes include allowing customers to apply for a maximum of two leak adjustments per year. Customers get 50% credit on excess water usage on both water and wastewater charges. You can read the full details of the previous ordinance changes here.
Houston Public Works says because of those ordinance changes, the water department has applied $6.3 million in credits to water bills in dispute. HPW public information officer Erin Jones emailed the following statement to KPRC 2 News reporter Amy Davis:
“Houston Public Works is committed to providing Houstonians with accurate water bills. Our team has provided adjustments to more than 5,000 customer accounts amounting to $6.3 million in high bill assistance since the nine ordinance changes went into effect in December 2023.
Houston Public Works continues to work with Mayor Whitmire on his plan to provide reliable water bills. Those details will be announced by his administration when the plan is finalized.”
We will keep bringing you new information about water bills in Houston as soon as we learn about it.
KPRC 2 Investigates led by Investigator Amy Davis has been looking into water bill issues for 20+ months. Check out our ‘DRAINED’ Investigation here for resources on getting water bill help.