NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) Hair salons use a lot of water. It’s just part of the business. But if you really want to see a big water bill, talk to stylist Nicole Meredith at Salon Society on Girod Street.

“Now my grand total is over $10,000,” Meredith told WGNO News.

She’s lived in the same 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house in the Seventh Ward for 5 years, just Meredith and her teenaged son. She says her water bill is usually about $100. Until last summer, when she received a bill for more than $3,700.

“They hadn’t read the meter is what the answer from the Sewerage and Water Board was,” she said.

Meredith says she went through the appeal process, but more big bills followed. She even hired a plumber to make sure there were no leaks at her home.

Meredith says she found out that she’s not the only one with the problem when her boss, the owner of the salon, also got a pair of SWB bills for thousands of dollars.

The Executive Director of the Sewerage and Water Board send WGNO News the following response regarding the spike in the women’s bills.

“We recognize that no system is perfect, however one of the foundational challenges of our current billing system is the need to manually read 140,000 accounts each month. As we look to modernize our technology, one of our top initiatives is to launch Smart Metering. Smart meters will revolutionize how we read meters, bill customers, provide service, and manage the water system. In the meantime, we are continuing to build our Meter Reading and Customer Service teams to expand our capacity and to better serve our customers.”

Ghassan Korban, SWB Executive Director

For more on the story, click on the video at the top of this page.