If a running hose or leaky faucet causes a high water bill from the Town of Nashville Utilities, as of Dec. 15 customers will find that some changes have been made if they want an adjustment.
At its meeting last week the Nashville Town Council voted unanimously to pass an ordinance that establishes a process for those requests.
There was not previously an ordinance for adjustments in place.
The ordinance was composed and recommended by the Nashville Utility Service Board (USB), which had been paying “closer attention” to claims as of February, USB member Pam Gould said last week.
Gould told the council that ahead of the Dec. 15 meeting she had calculated and determined that if the ordinance had been in place as of January 2022, the USB would have an extra $12,455.80 in its account.
She said that last year the USB started to get “a little suspicious” about some of the larger claims being submitted for adjustments.
The USB then decided to compose the ordinance, which saw maybe six different updates and revisions according to Gould.
In looking at ordinances passed in other communities, Gould said the major issue the USB found with Nashville’s current process is that it was not in compliance with Indiana state code regarding claims.
“In this (ordinance) we’ve included a copy of state code that pertains (to claims) so it’s quite clear, so we’re not trying to be ‘mean and ugly’ to rate payers that have catastrophic issues sometimes, or itty bitty issues,” she told the council.
“It’s right out of the state code.”
According to state code, reductions or adjustments are only allowed on the water utility side of a bill for leaks that are caused by physical damage to any facility or equipment supplying water to the premises, and damage is not visible or detectable on the customer’s premises, except on excavation or some other disturbance of the property.
Leaks must also not be the result of an act by the customer, agent or contractor hired by the customer.
“That will eliminate a big portion of our leak adjustment requests,” Gould said.
Instances that have led to requests include malfunctioning toilet flappers and boiler valves, outdoor water hoses being left running for undetermined amounts of time, and many other situations Gould said.
She added that there are several advantages to the ordinance other than being in compliance with state code.
A “hidden advantage,” she said, is that having an ordinance in place will improve the workflow of the town utilities.
“When you think about what our current (adjustment) process involves, it’s amazing the amount of paper that is generated,” Gould said.
“I would imagine that every single request probably takes a total of about four hours of somebody’s time, plus five USB members that have to look at them, think about them, talk about them in meetings — this will eliminate at least half of those things … Workflow will improve a lot on this side.”
Gould also said that the burden will fall on the account holder to properly maintain their water systems and be diligent about taking care of them.
“Before you leave on vacation, make sure your hoses are disconnected, faucets turned off, turned the water off at the toilet if you’re going to be gone for three months,” she said.
There were a few adjustment scenarios that were common and fell through the cracks with the old process, Gould said.
In the old process, she said, the formula applied to make rate adjustments was to take six months of the rate payer’s water use and average it for an adjustment.
In some cases, this formula had been applied to accounts that were less than six months old, Gould said.
She said an adjustment request for an account that was one or two months old averaged out to 217 gallons of water used in one month.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average American uses 88 gallons per day.
The USB also decided to raise the threshold for giving adjustments for things like power washing or pool and hot tub fills.
Gould said that because of the cost of work behind processing requests, the minimum adjustment for those types of requests is now 5,000 gallons.
“This month we approved a request for an adjustment for a hot tub fill for $7.13, which cost everyone probably $80 to process that adjustment,” she said.
“It will put the burden on the account holder to check out the meter so they’re not going to come back later, calculating averages worth for a sewer bill, and then getting an adjustment. They have to check out the meter.”
Council President Nancy Crocker said that customers need to know that “things will be changing” with the passing of the ordinance.
“My toilet was running last month and it was just a little adjustment to make it stop running, but it caused my water bill to go way up,” she said.
Thanks to the call of a town utilities staff member, she was notified about high water usage towards the end of the month.
“Our staff is watching, but you’ve got to watch for yourself and take care of that yourself,” she said.
Read ordinance 2022-11 at townofnashville.org/ordinances
