High Ridgewood Water Bills Due To Installation Of New Meters

The reason Ridgewood residents received water bills for thousands of dollars is because Ridgewood Water installed new meters that measure water usage.

Ridgewood Water has been converting to new radio meters and ditching the old telephone-based meters. The older meters were accessed via telephone and, when telephone services changed the meters could no longer be accessed.

Homeowners received estimated bills, sometimes for years, rather than having their meters read, said Roberta Sonenfeld, Ridgewood Village manager.

Sonenfield suggested last year that Ridgewood accelerate installing new meters by outsourcing the installation work and buying more meters.

Related: Residents Receive $6,500 Bills From Ridgewood Water

The result was that thousands of meters were installed and Ridgewood Water caught up on residents’ actual water use, resulting water bills as much as $6,500.

About half of the residents who received new meters received a credit and the other half ended up owing money, Sonenfeld said.

Customers who have overpaid have been credited or refunded the difference, said David Scheibner, Ridgewood Water’s business manager.

If the utility did not install more meters when it did, Sonenfeld said, it would have taken “several more years” to swap out the meters. That would have meant even more years of customers receiving estimated bills.

“I believed it was a growing customer service issue,” Sonenfeld said.