Selection of quotes:

But in interviews with The Citizen, Fayette County Administrator Steve Rapson and Assistant County Administrator Jason Tinsley said the issue stemmed from a missed meter reading during Fayette County Water System’s transition to a new countywide smart-meter system — not unauthorized water usage

Rapson said the widely circulated figure of roughly 15 million gallons reflected about six months of combined usage billed at one time — not a single month of consumption.

The original county letter also referenced complaints from residents near the Annelise Park subdivision about low water pressure.

Rapson said Fayette County Water System later installed monitoring equipment in the area to track pressure levels following the complaints.

“Since we’ve been reading it, there’s been no issue,” Tinsley said.

“But keep in mind, the individual that made that complaint made the complaint because they had issues with their well,” Rapson said. “We don’t pull anything out of the ground. We don’t have any wells in our system.”

I just wrote a novel of a reply to someone saying something didn’t look quite right about the numbers and guessing the issue was discrepancy between water billing and production . I should have looked for the letter first, and I would have found this article 😭

ETA: why is this dystopian? Maybe something about how a single water meter malfunctioning results in a water utility getting overwhelmed and maybe not investigating as completely as they could before sending letters. Fund your local utilities! 💕