SOUTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A recent Georgia Tech graduate, who lives in Hapeville, noticed his neighbors were seeing huge spikes in their water bills, so he decided to crunch some numbers.
After getting the water bills for every single private parcel over a three-year period, he said he found more than 12 percent of residents had seen a 300% spike in their bill.
“It was constantly spiking, spiking and spiking,” said LaTonya Henderson.
Henderson is on a long list of Hapeville homeowners who have lately been paying some high water bills.
“Do you think you could have used more than $500 worth of water?” asked Channel 2’s Craig Lucie. “No! I don’t use that much water…it was hard had to pay rent with the water bill super high. At one point, they had me down as a business water bill not a resident and they were charging me business a fee,” said Henderson.
Henderson says she also received a bill for more than $400 when her average is around $140 a month.
Lucie found her from an Excel spreadsheet compiled by Georgia Tech graduate and Hapeville resident Travis Horsley.
“We took away 35 months out of the 36 months and would separate each bill,” said Horsley.
Horsley worked with another Tech graduate and started requesting every resident’s water bills. He did what’s called an outliers analysis.
“Over 10 percent of the town or 12.5% over three years had seen a spike,” said Horsley.
Lucie tracked down many of those residents.
“One month it jumped to $88,” said Carmen Boatwright.
Another neighbor told Lucie his bill is normally $80, but it has been shooting up past $100.
“It kept going up to $116,” said Gary Roberts.
Lucie reached out to the city and the mayor explained the city buys its water from Atlanta. Mayor Alan Hallman sent this statement explaining that the bottom lines is that rates are 100% higher than they were a few years go since they are a wholesale customer of Atlanta.
"The City of Hapeville buys water from the City of Atlanta. In 2008, the City of Atlanta had a 4 year 64.5 % increase in its water rates. The City of Hapeville in turn passed on this increase to its customers. In 2014, the City of Hapeville had a sewer increase of 44.8% to pay off past water bills associated with operation & maintenance of the Atlanta sewer system and its share of Capital Improvements made to the Atlanta sewer system. This 100+% increase over the last several years has caused the water and sewer bills to be high. The City of Hapeville has a meter testing policy and every meter we have tested has come back within national standards. We have checked customer consumption history, billing and have no unusual patterns or spikes. Old service lines leaking, toilets hanging up and other type of significant water usage will cause customer's bills to spike higher than they have seen before. The City of Hapeville would be glad to sit down with any customer and look at their consumption history, check their billing history and test their meter to confirm accuracy."
Horsley told Lucie he respects those leading his city, but hopes they can use his data to improve it.
“I care for my neighbors. I love my city. I really want the city officials to be proactive leaders in the city,” Horsley said.
WSBTV
