New water meters are soaking some people

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The city’s new water meter readers are drowning the borough in undeserved bills, say angry Brooklynites who are now paying as much as eight times more for water than they did before.

The Bloomberg administration is slowly installing the automated devices, which read and transmit information to the city about water usage, across the five boroughs in a $252-million program launched in 2009 that was slated to save residents and businesses $90 million thanks to improved accuracy.

But residents say the new meter readers are causing their savings to go down the drain.

“I’ve been frustrated by it and I’m waiting for something to get done with it,” said Midwood resident Naomi Wolf, who claims she used to pay about $1,200 per year for water — before the city billed her $4,800 after installing automated meter readers at her home on Ocean Parkway last September. “I would prefer not to have to pay the city another $3,600 for something that didn’t take place. I use a normal amount of water like everybody else. We don’t have a sprinkler system. I barely even water the tiny patch of grass I have.”

Wolf is hardly alone.

Complaints have flooded Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s office from all five boroughs — but Brooklyn leads the way with 168 complaints about allegedly faulty readers, 42 percent of the citywide total.

Click photo for WPIX news report.