ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News is getting answers about a $56,000 water bill at an elderly man’s southeast Atlanta home.
Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray has learned that Atlanta Watershed did agree to a $20,000 adjustment on the water bill and said by law that was all they could do because they can only make adjustments going back one year.
“It was shocking. I’d never seen a bill for $56,000,” homeowner Carroll Jefferson said.
After a series of falls, Jefferson said he had to get his elderly father out of this southeast Atlanta home and into a nursing home.
“We had to sell immediately and then sort it out after the fact,” Jefferson said.
Once Jefferson started asking questions, Atlanta Watershed agreed to a $20,000 water bill adjustment, writing, “The Atlanta City Code provides that this adjustment be calculated as the difference between your billed usage and your actual or normal usage.:
“As you can see by the house behind me. There’s no pool there. So how did this bill get to be $56,000?” Jefferson told Gray. “I know my father paid his bills.”
Just last week, Ronald Petty Jr. spoke with Channel 2 investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln about the lawsuit he filed against the city of Atlanta over a more than $50,000 water bill on his deceased father’s home.
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Since that story aired, he launched a Change.org petition demanding Watershed “respects its customers by addressing billing discrepancies with urgency and honesty.”
As for the Jeffersons, Atlanta Watershed said:
“The customer contacted the Department of Watershed Management (DWM) to inquire about a significant increase in their water usage in February 2022. DWM inspected the meter and found a pattern of water flow that indicates a leak on the customer’s side in March 2022.
“In light of this, DWM conducted a follow-up inspection at the customer’s request and confirmed the meter was functioning properly, reiterating that the pattern of water flow indicated a leak on the customer’s property. In June 2022, DWM generated a work order following an extremely high consumption reading and notified the customer again about the suspected leak.
“In April 2024, the customer requested a bill adjustment covering March 2022 to February 2024. In response, The Appeals Board granted an adjustment from March 2023 to March 2024.”
The Jeffersons sold the house and paid the lien from Atlanta Watershed for $35,000 at closing out of the proceeds -- money that was supposed to go to pay for his father’s care.
“If it had been a pool, an Olympic-sized pool, or maybe even three pools. I can understand $56,000. But there’s no pool here. This house only had one bathroom and one kitchen,” Jefferson said.
The city said its hands were tied on the adjustment. By city code, they took that $20,000 from the previous year’s bill but could not go back beyond that to the previous year.
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