Atlanta Water Company Charges Contractor $30,000 For Water Usage On A Lot With No Water Line – “I feel like it’s extortion. This is criminal.”

Today in ‘automation is better’ news, a contractor in Atlanta is facing a $30,000 water bill for a lot that doesn’t even have a connection to a water line.

Jeff Raw, president and CEO of Revive Construction Group said he hadn’t even started construction yet on a site in Atlanta’s East Lake neighborhood when he received huge bills from Atlanta Watershed Management.

He tried to get his bill adjusted and even went to the utility company’s appeals board, but was denied the chance to change the bill, a report from Yahoo Finance, citing a FOX 5 Atlanta investigation, said.

“I feel like it’s extortion,” he said. “This is criminal.”

Atlanta Watershed Management set up a standalone water meter on an undeveloped plot in October 2022. Within a month, Revive Construction received a bill for $8,899, allegedly for using 305,184 gallons of water, far exceeding the EPA’s average household usage of 9,000 gallons per month.