Water and Sewer Billing Adjustment Policy

This policy establishes guidelines for requesting billing adjustments for water and sewer services billed by Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District #140 (District).

General Background Information

The District owns and operates water supply and sanitary sewer collection facilities to serve commercial and residential customers within the boundaries of the District. The District’s water distribution system delivers potable drinking water to its customers, and its sanitary sewer collection system provides for the removal and disposal of wastewater. To provide these services, the District contracts with the City of Richmond for water supply and the treatment of wastewater collected in the sanitary sewers. The District does not own water supply wells, water storage facilities or wastewater treatment facilities. Additionally, the District participates in a regional Groundwater Reduction Plan (GRP) that pays for the conversion from groundwater to surface water as mandated by the Fort Bend Subsistence District. The participants in the GRP are collectively required to convert to using 60% surface water by 2025.

Prior to contacting the District board:

  1. Click on this link or copy and paste the link into your web browser and follow the instructions in the video to determine if you have a whole house water leak.
    https://www.home-water-works.org/indoor-use/leaks
  2. If there is a water leak, determine the source and repair, replace and recheck for additional leaks.
  3. When determined there is no leak, contact the operator to request the meter to be read again and/or checked to determine the meter is functioning properly.
  4. Request a manual calculation of the bill.
  5. Contact a plumbing professional.

The District is contractually obligated to pay for all the water delivered by the City of Richmond (City) to the District, which figure is also used to calculate wastewater charges due to the City, regardless of whether all of that water has been used by the District’s customers or whether it was lost to a leak or otherwise. This means that if the District makes billing adjustments due to water leaks, the District’s other customers (i.e., your neighbors) must still pay for the lost water.

Adjustments

Adjustments (if any) will be made as follows:

Customers who believe there is an error in billing must contact and submit to the District’s operator a written request for review of the bill and/or a check of the customer’s meter to determine if an error in billing or a malfunction or misreading of the customer’s meter may be at fault.

Upon determination that the meter was performing accurately and no billing errors occured, no adjustment will be made.

Upon determination that the meter was malfunctioning or billing errors were made, an adjustment will be made in accordance with this policy. If the customer withheld payment pending the result of the review and the meter was found to be malfunctioning or billing errors were found, any penalties and interest incurred by the customer may (at the discretion of the board) be waived. It strongly recommended, however, that customers pay their bills on time, even when they believe there may be a billing error, to avoid potential late fees and penalties as the bills remain due in full by their due dates.

Misread or faulty meters are to be corrected or replaced and billing adjustments passed through to the customer in the next billing cycle.

The District has an established policy that it will not make billing adjustments for water leaks occurring on the customer’s side of the water meter.

Adjustments will be calculated from the last twelve (12) months’ billing cycles and averaged. Adjustments will be limited to one (1) time per calendar year, per customer. Adjustments will further be limited to one (1) billing cycle (i.e., one month).