Board of Water Supply — Local services in Honolulu

No stars. We received close to $3,000 water bill for ONE month early last yr - an absolute nightmare trying to remove from our bill, remains unresolved. Found out we were randomly being charged double for sewer b/c previous home owner used this property as multiple rental units, unbeknownst to us. His business dealings shouldn't be assumed to be ours. It took months to remove the incorrect double sewer charge from our bill while dealing with BWS runaround. Initially, they couldn't address the high water charge bc they said we had to remove double sewer w the other utility company they work with. Done, yet they refused to refund the money charged us that we already paid - for their records mistakenly stating we had 2 sewer lines. Re: high water charge, more waiting & runaround for months again. It's implausible for a regular family to consume 247,000 gallons of water in a month. Our average monthly is 19, monitored for over a yr. Businesses in our area don't even amass that type of monthly bill yet we are expected that bc they can't figure out where the discrepancy is, just pay it. We've spent countless hours over the past yr trying to have the erroneous charge removed. We're a family of 5 & our monthly bills are max $350-at the UTMOST max. We don't have a pool, don't have irrigation turned on-there isn't cause for our bill to jump to almost 3K in 1 month & then return to normal the following months. We had a main line water break on our street the month prior to bill issuance, several neighbors called BWS to have the excessive bill removed but in our case, they feel we should pay. They've suggested sending someone to inspect meter, which they have done 1x with no answers except "will go back to the office & try to figure this out, talk to the engineers...etc", no response after months of waiting. Told us they will "send someone else out" many times=Nothing. Dealing w BWS is a painstaking task - assuming one can actually get them to answer phones & that you haven't waited in cue for over an hour, to be hung up on, transferred to a dead line or a non-working mailbox. If you are, by the grace of God, able to talk to a human being, be prepared to have attitude thrown & snarky statements given such as "well, it appears you & your family have 'consumed' 247,000 of gallons of water so it looks like you have a big bill to pay." The excuses & delay tactics BWS use is insane: wait for us to call after we talk to the manager (no call), we'll get someone from the other dept look at this & get back w you (no call), we'll monitor your water bill, check out your consumption "habits" which remained the same for an ENTIRE yr of monitoring, no follow up or change, more threatening letters to us. There's absolute confusion w/ their record keeping, verbally mistaking us for the property next door (2 rental houses w a huge pool), insisting to us that we're renting out our property because the previous owner apparently did, etc. What gives BWS the legal right to assume this? Formal complaint made to the city who were kind enough to phone back; they agreed the exorbitant charge was sketchy & failure to resolve complaint unacceptable & told us to call the mayor's office - who pointed us back to the BWS. It's back to two broken record players saying the same thing. BWS insists there isn't a thing they can do except have us admit that we have some sort of leak underground (which we don't) & then just pay 50% of the bill.This is wrong in so many ways. Despite our patience & request to stop threatening us via water shut-off warning letters if we don't pay the bill (extortion), while they con't to "investigate"& drag this out. I understand now why these islands can't retain natives, quality healthcare professionals, teachers or skilled workers. From the cost of housing, the laughable years-long waiting on permits to repair things, to the asinine random charges the utility companies thrust on the residents, it's a wonder there are ANY natives left on these islands. It's unaffordable, run corruptly & this agency exacerbates this...

The Board of Water Supply is one of the most horrendously run organizations I have ever encountered. I have lived in my current residence for 6 months, receiving water bills of 0 usage during this time period. I inquired on upwards of 7 occasions to figure out why the bill was reading this way, and I even asked for a service representative to come to my residence and check the meter for abnormalities (this took far more coordination that I would like to state here, also). Finally, today, we received a bill for $4,000.00, something that I did not budget or plan for after being told that I would not be billed for any previous usage if an error did surface.

I am so displeased, and I hope that no one else has to go through this financial pain.

Not much anyone can do because this is a government organization, but I want everyone to know that this is happening so that they can prepare should they experience something similar.

Watch out, this organization...

I just wanted to thank the crew of Meter Mechanics Jayson Frank, William Kauloaiwi and Stephen Koki and Inspector Brandon Abelaye for their incredible patience and expertise in their work. We had trouble turning our sprinkler system off to repair our fire sprinkler line and thanks to the crew and investigator Brandon we were able to repair the problem that haunted us for a few months and within a week they were able to find and stay till we were completed with the job just to make sure we were ok. I am so thankful for them and their aloha. Thank you gentlemen for your hard work and it doesn't go un-noticed! Aloha from the Honolulu...