Memories

From the Herald Sun, 21 December 2000:

Duke University's half-million dollar payment to the
city this week for under-billed water use ends a saga
that fueled heavy criticism of city and university
officials.

And the payment may herald more city efforts to
collect hundreds of thousands of dollars it says
others - including Durham Regional Hospital and IBM -
owe on their water bills.

. . .

Duke also agreed to pay $20,000 to cover an
independent study of city billing.

The study, conducted by Brown and Caldwell of
Charlotte, checked four Duke water meters for
underbilling. It found problems with one - a 10-inch
meter at 2535 Erwin Road.

"Brown and Caldwell estimates that the meter
under-reported water consumption by approximately 40
percent, at the time it was changed out, based upon
the meter calibration provided by Durham," project
manager Rick Carrier wrote in letter faxed Tuesday to
Duke and the city staff.

(emphasis added)

I don't know about the rest of you, but i sure hope the city has been keeping its meters well maintained and calibrated. As that article and others noted, many of the city's larger water customers saw very large increases in their water bills when their meters were replaced in 2000, leading to the conclusion that they had been under billed (and their water usage under recorded) for years before that round of meter maintenance. Its been seven years, and i can't say as i know what the maintenance schedule for meters is. I know that mine failed in the summer of 2006 while i was on vacation, and was replaced when a neighbor reported a major leak in the front of my house. If you can confirm that the city has been keeping its meters maintained and calibrated since this incident, let us know in the comments.

thanks to an anonymous reader for digging up the HS article about Duke's previous water billing issues.