In March Web billed me for using 220 cubic meters of water -- 7 times more water than I had ever used in a month in four years of living here. I disputed the 2800 nafls bill; Web investigated and told me the bill was correct; the meter was fine and I had to pay the bill. I made sure there were no leaks in my pool and no broken toilets; nothing else changed and the next month the bill was within normal ranges. It is 100% impossible that I used 220 cubes in one month -- that's more than a small resort uses and if there was a leak in a water main, North Salina would've been flooded! Today I heard from a friend that he received the same kind of bill -an impossible huge bill -- not including the surcharge. We are going to talk to a lawyer because this is obviously not a one time event. Please contact me if this has happened to you too.

Wendy Horn
717 3902
wendyhorn@attglobal.net

Wendy,

I'm not a resident of Bonaire so this may be a dumb question, never having seen the detail that web puts on the bill.

Most water bills I am familiar with have both a "before" and "after" meter reading. If, by chance, you have saved your previous bills, it would seem fairly straight-forward to compare the meter readings through the period. This might eliminate the possibility that a clerical error occurred. If the meter values did actually jump by 220 cu mtrs, then you have a bigger problem, such as someone tampering with the meter...

Just a thought.

Barton

Barton --

I have all my old bills for four years. The actual metered use shows 220 cubes from the month before to the the month in question. Web investigated the meter and said it had not been tampered with.

Hi, Wendy!
Two things were going on at WEB in March that maybe might be related.
First, they were struggling with the electrical problems and turning our power on and off. Could an electrical surge have spun your meter out of control?
And second, the water quality in Belnem suddenly grew terrible in March, and it remains so. One of my neighbors was told that something may have gone wrong with the water production at WEB in March.
Perhaps this is all a coincidence, but maybe there is some connection to your outrageous bill.
I cannot believe WEB does not recognize that your meter reading must have been wrong.
Have you been given a chance to sit down and speak with the man in charge at WEB? And what about the deputy in the island government who is responsible for WEB? Maybe you can take care of this without a lawyer.
Good luck!
Tish

Tish -- Thank you for your ideas. The newest example of this problem (a one - time very high bill) just happened with a friend who lives in Belnam. I live in Republiek.I will try to find out who the deputy commission is who is in charge of Web (does anyone know?) This is all made worse by the nearly 100% surcharge on actual usage -- my bill this month with the surcharge was over 1000 guilders. Does anyone know how long the water surcharge will remain in effect ? Why are we paying it? It amazes me that the percentage of the surcharge varies by how much water you use --if you use more, they charge a higher percentage surcharge! If anyone has information on this they want to pass on privately, please email me at wendyhorn@attglobal.net. Thank you --

Ok, now that my first dumb/obvious question has been addressed I'll try for two in a row...

This one isn't as pleasant to think about, but do you have an easily accessible outside faucet? Any of your neighbors have better looking shrubs, new construction, new pool or ... ? Any commodity that is expensive is at the risk of theft.

I ask this question (especially focused on construction/pool) because I experienced this situation. We have a vacation home in Central Oregon and a few years ago a house was built on the lot next to ours. The development has central, metered water so getting access to water for the new house should have been relatively simple. Instead, the contractor just ran a hose from my house and used our water until he was caught by our property management firm.

Hope you get this resolved to your satisfaction.

-Barton

I know our water bills have gone up more than 50% lately over what they were at the start of the year, and so has our power bill (it was substantial before, and is now outrageous - 2/3rs of our monthly mortgage payment). It's time to start investing in alternate power sources for our house (and yes, I know about conservation, but when you run a business out of your house...)

Jake

Barton --- Thanks for your good ideas. We have a house going up next to us but they are correctly and separately metered. There are no faucets outside that could be easily tampered with... And the amount of water I'm alledged to have used would take all my hoses running full time into the street for days and days to come up to 220 cubes. That did not happen. I agree 100% with Jake -- we live on an island with plenty of sun and wind, yet we're held hostage to a single water/electricity vendor. My water and electricty bill for June was almost $800 even with a grey water system for the yard and airco in only two small rooms part of the day.

Sounds as though this is wide spread enough that the problem may well be at WEB; the meters may be fine but they are not the only device/thing in the chain between the house water inlet pipe and the paper bill!!! Time to dig a bit deeper!!!!

I seem to remember that there was a water pipe leak in Belnem ( or somewhere) earlier; can't have WEB charging customers for water their pipes leaked.

(Message edited by glenr on August 3, 2005)

I suspect the problem to be connection of a new WEB water user in Wendy's neighborhood. When WEB connects a new user they introduce air into the water line. They are SUPPOSED to bleed the line of air before restarting the service.

When the meter is registering air instead of water the meter responds at 800 times the rate of water. Thus, if the length from the meter to the street and then to new service point is 100 meters you will see the meter register 91 cubic meters of water usage as the air passes thru the meter. It will actually measure more than 91 cubic meters in that my calculation only uses a 5/8" water line - the feed from WEB is probably 1 1/2 or 2 ". Every linear meter (more precisely 1 meter of air in a 5/8" diameter copper water pipe) of air that passes thru the meter results in the meter recording .91 cubic meters of water usage.

I had this happen at my home when WEB hooked up water service to the people next door to me. I was in the garden and HEARD the water meter chattering away as the air made its way into the meter and then into the house.

According to Badger Meter (they make about 1/2 of the water meters used in the States) any meter seeing even marginal air columns must be replaced. The clutching mechanism within the meter may be strained to the point where it is absolutely ficticious in what it is measuring.

When you say "cubes"; does that translate to mean cubic meters?

ignore previous...I missed it in the first sentence of the first post.

Hi Wendy!! Sounds like Bruce is onto something, which if correct, should be explained to the people at WEB. Do they even have an official "engineer" that might grasp the difference in fluid dynamics between water and air in a meter.......? You could always behave as the locals would, and just not pay it :-)

I do know when I was away on vacation once I had water "stolen" and my water bill went from something like 35 nafl to 300 and for the little cement tent, that was a major big deal. At that time (2002) there was quite a rash of water theft, including a regular customer tanking up at Radio Netherlands out by 1000 Steps(prompting lock and chain installation).

Good luck resolving this - sounds like a sticky WEB to navigate :-o

Dara - from the mountains of Colorado (where we send all of our water to AZ and CA so they can squander it watering golf courses).

heee heee --- the cement tent. That's perfect.

Good to hear from you, Dara!

Kelly...Dara...cement tent with holes in the roof!

If Bruce is correct and WEB has been doing the same thing all along, it sounds as though a lot of the water 'theft' was by WEB itself. It should be real fun to get them to admit that!!! Not to mention the idea of meter replacement or asking how much error there might be in 'regular' bills for the affected locations. Not fun, folks.

WEB has billed us for 225 cubic meters of water--a whopping fls 2.847,00, over ten times our normal bill. We've disputed this at WEB, and they sent another meter-reader, who said it's correct. For comparison, at KFC, we use less than 50 cubic meters a month--and there I have water almost constantly in use from 9am to 1am. It's ridiculous. My (paranoid) theory is that they've billed people who they think can "afford" this bill, to make up their deficit. But Bruce's air/water comment makes a lot of sense too--we're on Kaya Grandi, and there's been a lot of work in the area. It certainly warrants further investigation. (I've been away since Aug 2, hence the late post).

It sounds as though a 'class action' is needed here: many people apparently have the same problem, and more if it were known. Individuals always have a hard time getting a bureaucracy to correct their actions, especially when large money is at stake.

Ruth, is this a recent WEB bill that was so high? or is this still a billing problem that occurred in March as for Wendy? I am just wondering whether or not it is still happening currently--have there been any articles in the papers about these WEB billing discrepancies? thanks, pauline

Received it yesterday. There has been a lot in the local media about the WEB bills in general (nearly double for everyone), especially electricity, where the "brandstofclausule" is supposed to be used to adjust bills relative to the world oil prices, but is now being (ab)used because WEB is in huge debt. Supposedly this use of the clause is illegal. At least that's my understanding of the spin it's getting. All of my electrical bills have doubled (KFC's is nearly $5k/m now-yes US$5,000). And that's on top of the water bill fiasco-which is happening to me at my house. Ouf.

Ruth..5K a month? Yikes! Pass the salitos!

Certainly sounds like something is not right...a fls 2.847,00 water bill?

Too weak, I've gone straight to my good friend, Mr. Johnnie Walker (green)...

Ruth, I think getting a water bill (and electricity bill) like that would make me break out the aged malt scotch (and drink it the English way...no rocks!)

Ruth,
Shortly after Wendy began this thread I wrote to her and gave her the name and e-mail address for the Bonaire Deputy who is in charge of WEB (among other things). He is Burney el Hage, who turns out to be her neighbor.
Unfortunately I cannot access his e-mail address now, so maybe you can get it from her.
When I was having water problems and WEB ignored me, I contacted him and he was very helpful.
Good luck!
Tish

Thanks Tish-we know him quite well, and are definitely working every local contact we have. And Cynde, you're right--why pollute my malt w/ice from water from WEB? Besides, ice slows down doing shots. My last payment to WEB totalled almost fls 11.000 (home & KFC together, before this 2.847 home water bill). Man, that hurts. (appx US$6k)

Ruth, I just fainted...pour me another scotch please...

Hey there Wendy & Ruth.

WOW !!!

I spoke to my neighbor (I'm in Santa Barbara - other side of the main street from Republiek) and told him about these outrageous bills. He had the same problem a couple of years ago. Turns out he had a pipe leak underground which was the cause but you couldn't see any leakage. In his case, it was a slow leak and his bills went from 400+ nafl per month to 80 +/- a month after having the leak fixed. Am definitely not discounting the possibility of a wrong billing - but have you guys checked your meters day to day to see if the numbers are moving too quickly ? Mark has discovered a few leaks at clients houses just by checking the meters weekly...

Scared in Santa Barbara,
Annette

In the new Reporter I read that somebody is "collecting" all the information about the "WEB mistakes" to stand up together to this. I sadly have the reporter not available anymore to forward that contact info, but maybe this can help you all .......

Thanks All -- A few comments

Annette -- If we had an underground leak the high readings would continue month after month. This was a one time high water bill that was then normal the next month without me doing anything differently. It was basically a one-time $1000 USD "hit".

The email address from the Reporter ad is honestwater@yahoo.com

I have information about a virtually identical issue encountered by another homeowner here. It just happened. So whatever this problem is with WEB with the one-time huge bills, it is continuing up to the minute.

I sent an email requesting a visit regarding WEB problems to Burney El Haage at the email address passed on to me but did not receive any response.

Thanks everyone for your comments and advice.

Wendy

Wendy,
My Antillean friends often don't hit "reply" even though they have received a message and noted it. I'm guessing this is a cultural difference.
I wrote Burney more than once before anything happened.
Then he did something about my problem.
Only after it was corrected did he write to me to tell me that. He obviously wanted to send good news rather than just say he had received my message and would look into it.
My advice: Keep writing him, not so often as to seem rude, but just keep reminding him that something must be done and others are having the same problem.
This will nudge him into pushing WEB to correct the problem.
I also suggest that you provide the explanation in Bruce's 3 Aug. message earlier in this thread. Spell it all out for him so he can pass that along to WEB. WEB so far as been checking the meter and saying it is working. They need to understand the meter can be working and still provide an incorrect reading and to know exactly how this is happening.
Good luck!
Tish

Bruce's explanation also explains one-time hits: a large 'water use' will be recorded each time air is introduced when a pipe is opened for repairs/new installation. Then the meter (if undamaged by the air slug) will operate normally making WEB correct when they check it later.

You need a cross reference between repairs/installations and the one-time hits on water use to demonstrate the effect, and assurance that WEB understands and believes the air slug bit. And maybe a get together with WEB people to run a test demo.

I just received my WEB bill for my house in Belnem and I am breathing a momentary sigh of relief as my water bill was 155 naf, but as noted here they might get me next time with a "big hit." I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed! I do hope there will be an investigation into all these strange WEB bill occurrences so we don't have to go bankrupt!

Hey there Wendy.

Sorry, didn't realize you'd gotten bills after this one hit and that they were normal. Yep, that does rule out a leak :-(

GOOD LUCK !
A

Perhaps someone can contact the technical services deptartment of the water meter manufacturer and get some assistance from them. If air in the lines is/could be the problem, they would be in a good position to speak to WEB from a position of knowledge and authority (not that web will listen :-(

I'm still wondering if there is anyone at WEB functioning in an engineering or technical capacity for whom the information would be of interest....? Will anyone care enough to investigate the problem, or will they just keep repeating "well, the meter is working properly, you must have used that much water". ARRRGHHH!

Our meter's running seemingly normal now, same as before the July bombshell. We actually received a postcard from WEB in July, telling us that they noticed we had used an "unusually high amount" of water between July 14 - 20, and that we should check for leaks, etc. We did, and had a WEB inspector come and examine the entire house and meter, which he pronounced to be just fine... I'm still not sure how they noticed this amount during this particular week. It's on the list of questions we have for WEB.
:-(

Interesting, Ruth. If they have a weekly (or even better daily breakdown to individual meters) it should be easier to cross check against any records of maintenance that would have introduced air in the vicinity of the 'high use burst' meters.

Here the readings are sent to the water company by a telephone line-style connection, so no human meter readers are necessary. I suspect the meter can be 'read' at any time by the company.

Here they still send someone around--and I found it very strange that they could pin down a week when this happened. The plot thickens.

Maybe they have been looking at their work records???.... Meaning they understand full well what is happening?... Some plot.

(Message edited by glenr on August 21, 2005)