2019/07/15 - Mayor's Column: Water Usage and Charges
“An Open Door to O’Fallon”
A Weekly Note from Mayor Herb Roach
The City of O’Fallon owns and operates its own municipal water and sewer system. A municipal utility system like ours dictates how we structure rates, improvements, and growth. The water and sewer systems are operated completely through rates and no taxes are used. The City’s goal is to provide clean, safe utility services to our residents and customers, improve and maintain the integrity of the system and to charge just enough to break even. We are able to do all of this at a value to our residents and customers. In fact, the City of O’Fallon charges lower rates than many of our neighboring communities and water providers.
Over the past few weeks, a number of residents have asked about their water and sewer bills. Most of the questions that I have answered are from residents asking why their bills and water consumption are higher than normal. There are many misperceptions and misinformation going around on social media, so I wanted to help clear a few things up. The short answer is that nothing has changed in water and sewer rates.
One issue that was shared on social media last week stated that a residential user consumed over 40,000 gallons of water and received a bill in excess of $700 but disputed that this was possible. Social media tends to distort reality without circling back around to share the resolve of an issue. When the resident in the scenario contacted our Utility Billing Department, we were able to send an employee to help figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, the resident was unaware that they had a toilet continuously running in the house, which caused the spike in water consumption.
While their issue was a faulty toilet while they were not home, there are many other reasons why your water usage may be higher than normal. Especially during this time of year, pools and lawn irrigation are heavy users of water. Filling up your pool once (28’ round pool, 4’ deep) may use around 18,500 gallons of water. Running a typical sprinkler from a standard garden hose (5/8”) for one hour uses about 1,000 gallons of water; if you run it three times per week, that is about 12,000 gallons per month. Those are a few examples, but you wouldn’t believe some of the causes that we have been able to discover (neighbors filling up their pools, broken irrigation systems, etc.).
The City of O’Fallon has over 17,000 water and/or sewer customers. While we strive for perfection, we also understand that from time to time, issues may arise. Very few of them are due to faulty equipment of the water system. But, we understand that no system is perfect. The fact is that every water and sewer customer’s situation is different.
If you’re ever concerned or have questions about your bill or usage, please call the City of O’Fallon’s Utility Billing Department at 618-624-4500 x 1. Our staff is very knowledgeable and always here to help you understand your bill and diagnose issues you may have at your residence or business. We cannot help solve the problem if we are unaware of it.
In addition, we try to solve problems before they happen. Our system audits the consumption in real time and alerts our staff of abnormal readings. If the system alerts us of an irregular change in water usage by a customer, we will reach out to them to proactively fix the situation before it gets out of hand.
As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open!