The swindle is known to everyone: Water Section, Utilities Department, Utilities Board of Commissioners, City Council, City Manager. My 10 November presentation to the Board outlined the problem with the disparity between billed water usage and the improbabilities of actual water usage, with the disparity imputed to a leak. Councilors on the Board, Tessa Abeyta and Johanna Bencomo, seemed uninterested, fiddled with papers, and avoided looking at me. Mayor Ken Miyagishima, all Councilors, and City Manager Ifo Pili have the facts; they received my earlier blog and have received this one.
Afterwards, Ray Hickman, a Board member, offered to review this problem, which has persisted for years and which Water Section personnel have insisted is mine, not theirs. He visited on 15 November, wrote me on 9 December, and discussed its findings with me on 16 December. When he visited, he impressed me with his engineering background and his data-analytical and problem-solving approach. I did not expect him to discover the leak in the yard or house, where Water Section personnel could not find it. I hoped that he could trace the problem to a data-processing error in the Water Section’s new technology.
Hickman had the facts. He had the text of my Board presentation, with its copy of my latest bill, which shows October-to-October monthly water usage; he had another copy which I gave him on his visit. I say so because, in our discussion of his letter, he claimed not to have had that bill. I reminded him of the copy which I had given him, but he gave no indication that he would pursue my problem further—to me, a sign of bad faith.
The explanation of my highly variable bills for water usage is a leak, but it makes no sense. On the one hand, the leak is a small, steady one throughout the year. When read at any time of year, the water meter shows a flow of about 1.5 gallons per hour (GPH), or about 1080 gallons per months (GPM). Hickman writes that “A closer study of the current data for your home shows a continuous flow rate of not less than 1-2 gallons per hour at all hours of the day.” I believe that this “closer study” was nothing more than looking at and accepting Water Section data. Usage ranging from 720-1440 GPM ranges from one-fourth to one-half of my average water usage of 3000 GPM. I do not want to waste water, but I do not worry about a bill including the costs of this wasted water.
Hickman also writes that “A constant leak of 2 GPH should generate a puddle or wet spot somewhere visible.” “Should”: but, as he saw, it did not, in the yard or house. He suggested shutting off the water softener, his suspected source, with tubing discharging into a drain, and reading the meter to see if it stopped showing a flow. Instead, I ran the tubing to a bucket; after 4 hours, the bucket held only about two or three tablespoons of water. The reality: no leak, only a meter reporting a flow which does not exist.
On the other hand, the leak is a large, fluctuating one for about six months of the year; it rises to and then falls from a peak up to 12,000 GPM. By claiming not to have the bill, Hickman says nothing about a GPH reading—it should be 16.6 GMH—which would account for such a large, long-duration surge; no data support my billed amount. Again, I do not want to waste water, but I do worry about a bill including the costs of this wasted water.
Without my bill, Hickman cannot write about “a puddle or wet spot somewhere visible” of the size implied by a leak of this size. Such a “puddle” of 12,000 GPM billed less 1,080 GPM used (12,000-1,080 = 10,980) would have a volume of 1471 cu ft (1 gal = 0.134 cu ft), enough water to fill a swimming pool roughly 4 ft x 20 ft x 18.4 ft. Leaks of February’s 11,000 GPM and March’s 12,000 GPM could have filled two swimming pools, should have been visible, or should have produced marshy ground destabilizing my house, boundary walls, driveway, or sidewalk. The reality: no leak of this magnitude.
Historical patterns are relevant though, so I am told, the Water Section destroyed its records when it installed its new metering system three or four years ago. From 2007 through 2014, my wife and I used about 2000 to 4000 GPM, depending on whether we were watering vegetation. Since then, as a single occupant and with no watering, my usage for half the year has averaged 3000 GPM even with the new metering system, with no increase because of a leak. This pattern suggests that there is no leak, despite a water meter indicating water flow. Water Section personnel on several visits and Hickman on his one visit have looked for a leak in my yard and house, have found none, but have insisted on one.
The persistent inability of Water Section personnel or Hickman to find a leak of any size, large or small—actual water, not meter readings—or to explain huge fluctuations suggests that their hypothesis is totally fact-free and false. They cannot urge both a small leak and a large leak because leaks do not fluctuate wildly. Nevertheless, they repeatedly urge me to have exploratory work done in my yard and house to find a leak; they want me to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars though, if I find nothing, they bear no responsibility for my expenses.
But, when I suggest that they consider whether a new system could have any number of hardware, software, or management problems, both Water Section personnel and Hickman become defensive. The reaction is typical of bureaucrats whose arrogance is compounded by incompetence, if not criminality. Hickman’s pretense at investigating my problem displays the fate which befalls many who are supposed to oversee or regulate public agencies: capture by agency personnel. In this case, Hickman sought to help Water Section personnel in a cover-up.
The Water Section lacks evidence that the water system is actually delivering water to my property which is leaking into my yard or house. All it has are meter readings and office computers spinning out numbers which correspond to no reality—water—on the ground. I am being overbilled, and I am probably not alone in being overbilled. Maybe the Utilities Department’s billing personnel have their thumbs on the scales and their hands in the till. The City must hope that an enterprising investigative reporter does not disclose that Las Cruces, like Deming, has been padding the water bills of city residents.
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