Why water bills are spiking in Desert Hot Springs

DESERT HOT SPRINGS, Calif. - Over the past few days several Desert Hot Springs residents have come forward reporting an increase in their water bills. Many took to the DHS Neighborhood group on Facebook to voice their concerns. Some said they experienced the spike after the Mission Springs Water District installed new meters.
"My bill has always been really low, never more than $50-52 dollars," Desert Hot Springs resident, Darla Berry said.
Berry never had a problem with her bill until she received one for July and another in August. Both noticeably more than doubled.
"I’ve been living in this particular address for almost 2 years now. My bill has a graph of last year and this year and it’s the same all the way until July- it spikes a little bit, and in August it went all the way to the top," Berry said.

"We don’t water the grass, we don’t have a pool, no leaks in the house anywhere. I can’t find any outside," Berry said.
Berry wasn't alone. She and dozens of other residents experienced recent price hikes in their water bills. Many reported seeing them after the district installed new smart meters.
Mission Springs Water District responded to the reports by releasing a statement on Facebook and their website. One portion stated in part:
When the new smart meters went online recently, they allowed MSWD to identify water leaks and continuous consumption. We found that about 1,000 customers have continuous consumption.
"We had about 1,034 that were showing up with continuous usage," Mission Springs Water District Customer Service Manager, April Scott said.
Scott said the district started changing out meters in December 2019. In late 2018 the company experienced large volumes of register malfunctions, which is the device that sends out water use data to the district.
Mission Springs Water District told News Channel 3 that it is currently in litigation with the register manufacturer over not replacing the faulty equipment.
"When that occurred we weren’t able to retrieve the data. Our practice is you estimate based on that property or that customer’s historical use, their data. Their use was estimated for a period of time. What happens when we’re estimating is you’re not necessarily in control of your water use or if you have a leak or something, you don’t know because your bill is coming in the same," Scott said.
Scott said that while customer bills were being estimated, the company was also subtracting 3 percent of the bill in the customer's favor.
"Aging meters lose accuracy over time and they do not capture minimal flow that a new meter would. A new meter is more accurate and records the actual water used; therefore, a customer’s bill may increase with the new meter," Scott additionally said.
Customers have been advised to check their systems, and determine whether there are any leaks.
"It doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a leak in every property, it says there’s continuous flow which is the message that we put out to our customers," said Scott.
She went onto say evaporative coolers, pool auto-fill devices, drip irrigation systems could all contribute to continuous flow.
Although there are several areas to check off, Berry is skeptical after her most current billing cycle reported using 87, 516 gallons of water.
"There’s no way and if it was that kind of a leak, there should be some damage somewhere, or water coming out from somewhere," Berry said.
According to MSWD the average amount of water used per household on a month-to-month basis is 9, 724 gallons.
Many residents will now have to undergo the tedious process of having to check whether in fact they have leaks, or if there is another source of continuous consumption.
Meanwhile Scott is urging affected customers to reach out to the district and to her office. She said if you feel as though your problem is not resolved, reach out to her directly.
"The first thing that we do is we'll head an investigation. We look at the data here, that is transmitted, that we can see right away. We screenshot, we'll send the information to the customer so that they can see what we're seeing and at that point if they're not seeing something, a pattern maybe when their irrigation comes on, we'll send a technician out and have them retrieve the data as well," Scott said.
Customers can contact the water district at 760-329-6448