They ‘simply don’t work.’ Moss Point, Gautier sue for millions over automated water meters.
Gautier and Moss Point are asking for millions in damages for alleged fraud, negligence and breach of contract over the installation of faulty water meters and meter-reading systems that the cities paid millions to obtain.
Moss Point is suing for over $20 million in damages, and Gautier is asking for over $16 million in damages.
The cities filed the complaints in April in Jackson County Circuit Court against companies that touted the automated system as an energy-efficient project that would pay for itself and lead to a reduction in operational costs and increased income.
The suit is against McNeil Rhoads, LLC, of Mississippi, and its president and agent; Mueller Systems LLC, in Georgia, and its registered agent, CT Corporation Systems, LLC, in Flowood; and Mueller Water Products, Inc., in Flowood, and its registered agent and president.
Mayor Mario King announced the Moss Point lawsuit during a press conference Monday. City Attorney Amy St. Pe’, who filed the suit on behalf of the two cities, attended the live event.
Gautier is asking for damage to pay for the over $4 million it invested to have the system system installed along with millions more for other damages.
In 2013, city officials in Gautier and Moss Point began meeting with representatives of McNeil Rhoads, a company that sold the project to the cities.
The city of Moss Point paid $8.5 million for the system, while Gautier paid an estimated $4 million to get the same system installed.
McNeil Rhoads assured officials in both cities they would recoup the money invested in the project along with additional revenue.
Instead, the lawsuits say, the water systems has been plagued with problems since installation.
Many residents, for example, have “received astronomically high bills that do not reflect their actual water usage,” due to faulty meters.
In other cases, a bill is not generated at all because the automated meters “simply don’t work.”
In Moss Point, over 1,000 of the 7,017 meters installed are not working properly, the lawsuit says. The city of Gautier has experienced the same problems with the faulty meters.
“The company has essentially forced the city, at its own expense, to change out many defective meters,” the Moss Point complaint says.
The cities have had to try to develop new strategies and systems to deal with the faulty water systems, all of which are measures the cities says are less efficient and more costly than previous manual systems.
In the lawsuits, the cities allege those who sold them the upgraded systems used a “bait-and-switch” approach to get them to pay the costs upfront.
As a result of the faulty operations, credit ratings in the cities have suffered, the complaints say.
Before the cities entered into the contracts, McNeil Rhoads did an audit of the previous manual systems and guaranteed the projects would pay for themselves or the company would cover the costs. That never happened.
“I just want you to know we are doing the best we can and we look forward to our day in court,” King said.
This story was originally published April 28, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
