Imagine Your Water Bill Shooting Up to $4,000: Inside One of Detroit's Biggest Crises

http://www.alternet.org/economy/imagine-your-water-bill-shooting-4000-inside-one-detroits-biggest-crises



Ricardo Russell’s monthly water bill averaged around $60 dollars at his home on Detroit's west side until January when he opened an envelope from the Detroit Water Department that claimed he had used $2,000 worth of water -- in one month.

Russell, 37, went down to the city's water department to ask a representative why his December bill was so high. “The lady thought I owned a business or something,” he told me during one Saturday morning in midtown Detroit in late October. “She asked, ‘Did the business go up? And I said ‘It’s a residential street. it’s a residential house. It’s only me there. There’s nothing abnormal going on.’”

The city representative said she would send someone out to Russell’s home. Meanwhile, he cut off water access to everything in his house, except for the shower and the toilet. The February bill dropped down to $1,150, still well above the $60 he normally paid. When a technician visited Russell’s home, he said there was an issue with the meter and replaced it. Russell went back to the water department to see if he could get his bill reduced, and was told to hire a plumber to see if a pipe was broken. Russell hired a plumber, who charged $150 an hour, to check all of the pipes in the home.

The plumber found a pipe the size of a spoon with a crack in it that was connected outside of his home where the city pulls water into Russell’s home, he said. The plumber replaced that pipe and Russell’s water bill shot down to $40 the next month. But when Russell asked the water department if the balance on his bill could be reduced, he was told there was nothing that could be done for him. He says he was placed on a payment plan that required him to pay twenty percent of his total bill upfront and the rest in monthly installments for the remaining eleven months. Ricardo’s bill was more than $4,000 at that point, so he had to pay at least $400 immediately.