ATLANTA -- By the time you read this story, the tab on Kenny Price's water bill will have gone up another couple of dollars.
That's because the meter is literally running. The water meter, that is.
Kenny's a photojournalist at 11Alive, and he's seen all those big
residential water bill stories we've done before. He just never knew
that he might have the biggest one we ever saw.
Looking at the dial on the water meter outside his home in Southwest
Atlanta, you might think it's a stop-watch. The hand cycles completely
around every 45 seconds or so. But it's not supposed to be moving at
all.
The water main to the house is shut off for the moment. The obvious
answer, according to city of Atlanta is that there's a leak here.
The not-so-obvious answer is where. Where exactly would 1.2 million
gallons of water go without a trace or even a puddle on the property?
"My water bill normally is like $60 to $80," said Price shaking his
head. "This time it was $62,000 dollars or something like that."
$62,823.21 to be exact.
Price said the city didn't send him a bill for three months until
this one came in the mail. It's enough water to fill an Olympic-sized
swimming pool. Twice.
In fact, if you filled his yard with water, it would be 40-feet deep.
That's 10-feet deeper than the main tank at the Georgia Aquarium where
the giant whale sharks swim.
Price immediately hired a plumber.
"We went all around the house, and he detected the line," said Price. "We found the line, but we couldn't find any water leak."
Price says after he complained, a Watershed worker came by to check the meter and found nothing wrong.
11Alive called Watershed again and a spokesperson said they will take a closer look.
After all, a million gallons of water doesn't just disappear down the
drain. Especially when it doesn't even make it to the drain.
"I'll quote what the plumber said," Price laughed. "He said that
would probably be a Georgia Dome water bill. That may be too much for
the Georgia Dome. He had never seen anything like it; he couldn't figure
it out."