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City Water Bills Skyrocket For Some Because Of Technology Glitch

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- City water bill from the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority are shooting up.

The bar line of water usage on Vivian Kowalski's water bill practically doubled, she told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Friday.

Delano: "What's going on?"

Kowalski: "I don't know."

Delano: "Are you using more water?"

Kowalski: "No, no, and there's not any other people living here neither."

And Kowalski, who lives on Mt. Washington, is frustrated when she calls the Water Authority.

"They don't know what they're doing, and they can't answer our questions," she said.

Facebook is exploding with customer complaints, including Joanne Santucci of Arlington.

Santucci's recent bill showed her water usage jump from 8,000 to 12,000 gallons.

"Started looking at my previous bills -- and maybe something is wrong," she noted.

What many city homeowners have discovered is that their most recent water bills are going up dramatically -- even doubling.

And many believe it's all because of a little box on the side of their homes.

Turns out these outside boxes read water meters inside the house -- and then via satellites transmit information directly to Water Authority computers.

"We are having some problems," says Melissa Rubin, a spokesperson at the Water Authority.

Rubin admits the new outside boxes cannot always read older inside water meters.

"System-wide we have about 3,500 meters that are an older style meter, and this meter-reading device is unable to read this older style meter," says Rubin.

All old meters will be replaced by July, but some neighborhoods have had additional billing issues.

"It starts up here in Eliot goes through the West End, Duquesne Heights, Mt. Washington and ends over here in the South Side," noted Rubin.

Rubin asks customers to call if overbilled.

When Santucci did that during normal office hours on Friday, she had a 10-minute wait.

Then, she said, "Went down to a one minute wait. Then it starts ringing, and I get this message, 'Our offices are currently closed.'"

"That's terrible," said Rubin at the Water Authority. "I wasn't aware there was an issue with the phones. We will definitely look into it, and we'll address that and get it fixed."

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