GILROY
– There was nothing wrong with Jenny Liu’s water meter, its
manufacturer has determined. This finding begs the question, Did
Liu use 98,000 gallons in August, roughly seven times the house’s
normal monthly usage?
GILROY – There was nothing wrong with Jenny Liu’s water meter, its manufacturer has determined. This finding begs the question, Did Liu use 98,000 gallons in August, roughly seven times the house’s normal monthly usage?
If so, how? If not, what error caused the city to charge her for that amount?
Invensys Metering Systems, formerly the Rockwell Manufacturing Co. which built the meter, pulled the device from Liu’s home in December. The company took it to Pennsylvania, disassembled it and found no problems with it.
“Like I said in the beginning, I didn’t suspect it was wrong,” Liu said. “It just leaves a little bit more of a mystery as to why these things go wrong in Gilroy.”
To city Administrative Services Director Michael Dorn, it’s not much of a mystery. He’s sure Liu and her husband J.J. used the water somehow.
A toilet valve stuck wide open or a faucet left at high flow overnight could produce 25,000 to 30,000 gallons in a day, according to Dorn’s rough calculations. The Lius took vacations on two separate weekends in August, and they could have unknowingly left a faucet on.
Dorn thinks similar homeowner mistakes caused similarly abnormal high water bills for several other city residents who complained in the wake of Liu’s stormy protests.
“At random throughout the city, people make errors,” Dorn said.
August was the Lius’ first full month in their house at 8907 Church St. She said they had no unusual indoor water use and kept the automatic sprinkler at the same level as the previous owners – 15 minutes every other day. Their water bills dropped dramatically after August: 13,000 gallons in September and 8,000 in October. Liu said she continued to water her lawn with the same frequency in September as in August.
Liu had a lawyer on the case and was preparing to take the city to small-claims court. Instead of fighting an expensive legal battle, city officials in December forgave the entire $120 of Liu’s August water bill, which they had previously reduced from $421.
The city has also settled with at least three other Gilroy homeowners who reported high water bills, giving them partial credit.
The debate is still open on whether the city should have to explain abnormal monthly water use. Staff does conduct basic tests in arguable cases, mostly for broken pipes, but Liu suspected hers was due to a billing glitch.
“Obviously mine is not an isolated case,” Liu said. “Maybe they should look into it instead of trying to explain it away and say it’s the consumer’s fault.”
Dorn said the city will be more stubborn in the future to keep the city from subsidizing more bills like Liu’s.
But Dorn disagreed.
“We deliver the water to them,” he said. “It went through their meter. How they use it is their business.
“In my view, if the meter is accurate and the water is going through the meter, they should pay for it.”
