FOX25 Investigates: Thieves, leaks and broken equipment driving up water bills

BOSTON — Leaks, broken equipment and water thieves who cheat the system are driving up water bills and forcing everyone to pick up the tab, FOX25 Investigates found.

From broken meters to homemade hookups – Boston inspectors have checked out 39 cases of suspected water theft since January.

According to records obtained by FOX25 Investigates, the Boston Water and Sewer Commission has confirmed at least 13 illegal connections in those cases so far this year.

At one home, water meters had been disconnected, while an "unmetered hose" was hooked up to a fire hydrant for use by a construction contractor at another location.
           
Inspectors also cited a restaurant for getting its water free of charge until "transmitting errors" on the meter tipped off the commission.

Boston Water and Sewer Commission officials blacked out the names of the water thieves – telling FOX25 Investigates sharing that information would be “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Gary Stead, Malden’s supervisor of water meters, told FOX25 his city catches nearly 50 water cheats a year.

“I really don't want to go into details, but people are pretty crafty,” said Stead. “We had one guy try to superglue his meter back together.”

Erik Gitschier, head of the Lowell Regional Water Utility, told FOX25 Investigates, ““My job is to protect all of the residents -- not the few who are getting away with things.”

Gitschier said theft makes up only a small part of all water that gets lost in the system

FOX25 Investigates has learned some communities are seeing more than a third of all water they pump out disappear as “unaccounted for water” – often due to old water meters, leaks in the system or water main breaks.

In Lowell, 19 percent of all water it pumps out is “unaccounted for” – down from 28 percent in 2011.

“In unaccounted for water, I can't bill anybody, so it goes across the board to everybody,” said Gitschier.

In Lowell, the city saves customers $12,000 every time the city reduces unaccounted for water by just one percent.

Lowell, Malden and other communities are installing new water meters and checking for leaks on an annual basis to try to move closer to the state’s standard of 10 percent of less unaccounted for water and to keep customers’ water bills down.

Customers in Somerville recently saw a spike on their water bills.

Somerville resident Allison Stieber said she was shocked when she saw a new $60 “base fee”– a $240 annual surcharge.

“I thought maybe there had been a mistake,” said Stieber, who told FOX25 she’s on a fixed income. “I think it should be reflecting, somehow, people's actual water usage.”

City officials told FOX25 Investigates the new charge on customers will pay for maintenance and system updates – not unaccounted for water, which nearly doubled last year in Somerville.

Somerville’s unaccounted for water increased from 14 percent in 2014 to 26 percent in 2015 – a spike city officials blamed on significant water main breaks.

Cox Media Group