ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Susan Gagle lives in St. Petersburg.

She said her typical water bill is between $200 and $300. But not anymore.

“First high water bill was three Friday’s ago when I opened the mail, and it was $725,” she explained.

Gagle said she wasn’t even home for half of the month because she was on vacation.

When she got whiff of this happening to other people in St. Pete, she reached out to 8 On Your Side for answers.

“The numbers just don’t make sense,” she said. “Why would they skyrocket out of nowhere with just no reason behind it.”

“It just doesn’t make sense and if something doesn’t make sense, you need to dig into it,” Gagle continued.

David Kuoch also lives in St. Pete. He said his typical water bill was around $270.

“I didn’t find out about the high bill until it was deducted from my account,” he explained. “The first one was $2,400,”

“That was the period right after the hurricane from Oct. 7 to Nov. 7,” Kuoch continued. “Then I got another one for $2,500. Then the following month, $2,100.”

Click here to view the agenda for a Thursday meeting including a presentation addressing the high water bills.

It lists a few answers to residents’ most burning questions: Why is this happening and what’s being done about it?

The presentation shows four reasons for a high water bill.

The first is if there’s a leak on your property.

The presentation broke down leaks in two categories saying the following:

“Storm Related: Some customers may have had water loss due to a leak in homes where significant flooding occurred, causing appliances to be submerged, such as a toilet. For example, if the toilet is under water, and constantly flowing.

Not Storm Related: Leaks happen on private property throughout the year, even unrelated to a storm event. For example, a common leak we encounter from customers is for a toilet.
And each of the other reasons have to do with estimated reads on meters.”

The PowerPoint listed a few other reasons for high water bills, all having to do with estimated reads.

It said high consumption could immediately follow an estimated read.

“In this case, since we don’t have record of the actual read and true consumption due to the estimate, we ‘even out’ the total consumption from the estimated month and the high month, which frequently dissolves the high consumption,” the PowerPoint read.

The presentation also said high consumption could immediately follow zero consumption due to an inaccessible meter.

“In this case, since we don’t have record of the actual read and true consumption due to the estimate, we ‘even out’ the total consumption from the estimated month and the high month, which frequently dissolves the high consumption,” it read.

The last reason listed was a high estimated read.

“An estimated read can calculate high consumption if the average consumption prior to the estimated month was unusually high (i.e., pool fill, prior leak, etc.),” the presentation said.

As for solutions, the presentation lists wanting more flexibility with city code to provide more relief to costumers, installing more digital meters and moving forward with advanced metering infrastructure

Kuoch said something just isn’t right here.

“The old saying goes: ‘If there’s smoke, there’s fire,'” he said. “So obviously, from my perspective and the data says, there’s a problem, right?”

“You can’t just go from $200 to $2,000 overnight,” he continued.

According to the agenda, the meeting is set to begin at 10:50 a.m. at St. Pete City Hall.