ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — When people get their bills — they sometimes don’t read the small print.
And for some communities east of Pittsburgh, they’re paying for it by having their water shut off.
Some homeowners who live in several eastern suburbs, like Forest Hills, Braddock and Swissvale, unexpectedly had their water cut off by the Wilkinsburg-Penn Joint Water Authority.
The water authority switched to a new payment system and automated payments are no longer allowed until this fall, which is the reason behind the shutoff.
Customers feel they were caught off guard, and not given enough notice, so they looked to their local leaders, like Rep. Abigail Salisbury.
“I’ll be honest with you. I only knew about it because people complained about it,” Salisbury said. “So I had to go home and ask my husband if we had gotten a shut-off notice because we were on auto-billing.”
For six weeks, she says she tried to get answers from the water authority and heard nothing.
11 News went there Tuesday. We were told, “No comment.”
Because the water authority isn’t under the jurisdiction of the state’s public utility commission representative, Salisbury says there isn’t much that can be done.
“There’s not a ton we can do with these local water authorities, but there is always talking about legislation of putting the water authorities under the regulation of the PUC,” said Salisbury.
Rep. Salisbury finally did get in touch with the executive director, who said that he felt the problems were resolved.
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