County commissioners pursue help for high water, sewer bills

Yahoo

05-04-2025

CUMBERLAND — Allegany County officials said they want to help some area residents who are charged remarkably high water and sewer rates.
In a public work session Thursday, Allegany County Administrator Jason Bennett held a thick stack of papers that contained a letter and petition with more than 1,200 signatures from folks who live in Bel Air, Pinto, Glen Oaks and Highland Estates.
The residents, customers of the private company Maryland Water Service, want to meet with the commissioners and other government leaders to discuss monthly water and sewer bills that average about $350 and have reached $650 to $900 for some customers.
Maryland Water Service, a Texas-based Nexus Water Group company, earlier this week refused to discuss the matter with the Cumberland Times-News.
'We're trying to figure out what all options we have,' Bennett said.
'On the surface, you commissioners can't necessarily affect this, but in cooperation with the feds and the state, we're gonna try to figure out what we can do.'
Bennett said the county's state delegates agreed to discuss the matter with county officials after the current legislative session ends.
'People are getting hammered out there ... no doubt about it,' Commissioner Creade Brodie said of the water customers who have gone to extreme conservation measures.
He recalled meeting with the water company's representatives several times in the past to ask about the high bills.
'You could never talk to the same people,' Brodie said. 'It was like trying to nail Jell-O down.'
County officials said one of many unknowns is whether aging infrastructure contributes to the high water bills.
'There's a lot of questions,' board President Dave Caporale said, adding that he wants to know how and why the Maryland Public Service Commission 'weighed in on this,' and whether the state's attorney general is investigating the situation.
Allegany County Director of Public Works Adam Patterson said Maryland Water Service buys its water from the county, which purchases the water from Cumberland.
'The cost that we purchase from Cumberland ... we mark up and then that' (pays the county's) transmission cost,' he said. 'What I'm seeing is (the water company officials) then mark it up again.'
The commissioners agreed to arrange the meeting the residents requested.
'Getting everybody together to start that dialogue ... would help those folks out there at least know that everybody's trying to look into it, trying to see what we can do,' Commissioner Bill Atkinson said.