City, 1; Senior Citizens, 0

I was perusing regional news today and found an article at The Post-Crescent's website.  An 84 year-old resident in Appleton, WI is being held responsible for a $3,000 water bill from earlier this year, a period of time during which his house was vacant.  City workers removed a water meter with visible damage from the house and rebuilt it without determining whether the meter was functioning properly or not.  According to the city, the man and his wife used 44,700 gallons of water over a 3-month period.  The city claims broken water pipes in the house are to blame, yet no water damage is visible.

WTF?!?!?  How do you run that much water through a building without there being water damage anywhere, unless it's contained by water pipes???  (The ones the city claims leaked.)  Think about this: A 30-foot by 15-foot swimming pool that's 12 feet deep holds less water than the city says ran through that house.  Looking at it another way, if you ran 20 gallons of water out your faucets, every hour for 24 hours a day, for 90 days . . . you'd still be shy of that 44,700 gallons.

My MIL suffered a broken water line once when she was gone for the day, and had to replace flooring and drywall in a number of rooms.  The estimate for her water loss was well short of the 44,700-gallon mark, so you can imagine the havoc that would ensue if a swimming pool were emptied through someone's living room or basement.  (BTW, her city's water department wrote off most of the bill, even though there was no question that the leak occurred on her side of the meter.)

How convenient it is for the city water department that they failed to test the water meter for accuracy, knowing that the city would likely be left holding the bag on the bill, so to speak, if the meter was faulty.  And how inconvenient for a pair of senior citizens who have to defend themselves against the city's allegations, when potential evidence that might have been in their favor has been destroyed by the very people who stand to gain financially from the outcome.

You can follow the ongoing saga here, here, and here.

In all fairness, if you leave a water tap running for that same length of time, you'd lose down the drain far more than 44,700 gallons. My kitchen faucet puts out just shy of 2 GPM. So it's within the realm of possibility that an open tap could have been responsible, without causing damage.  The problem is, the city is not claiming that's the cause, but rather that cracked and broken pipes in the home are to blame.  If you take file a police report alleging someone hit you over the head with a baseball bat, and it was really a pencil, you've filed a false report, and that's illegal in every jurisdiction I know of.  If you take someone to court, alleging they caused damage to your 2008 Lexis, and it turns out you own a '74 Ford pickup instead, well, guess which way the judge is going to rule?   

I realize a city council is not a court of law, but the members -- individually and as a group -- should be honor-bound to serve the public interest, and to do so in a fair manner.  Allegations have to be backed up with facts, not conjectures.  One could certainly argue that in deciding for the water dept. and against the homeowner, the "public good" is being served by adding to the city's coffers.  But I doubt anyone would call it fair.  There's certainly no honor to be found there.  If the pipes did, indeed, leak, then the homeowner could rightfully be held responsible for the bill.  But evidence to support the city's claim (photographs of water damage, repair bills for the damage, the untampered with water meter, etc.) should have to be presented as evidence.  The "it's so because we say it's so" attitude that seems to be displayed by city employees and council members has all the olfactory allure of three-day old carp left to age in the summer sun.

I'm tempted to nominate the City of Appleton for Keith Olbermann's "Worst Persons in the World" segment.