El Paso Water working to correct overcharged fees; temporarily suspends disconnections

EL PASO, Texas – El Paso Water says customers were inadvertently overcharged for Environmental Services Department charges and EPWater stormwater fees. The utility is not attributing what led to the overcharge.

As ABC-7 reported, customers were complaining about higher than normal charges. Part of the confusion was over the switch to a new customer information system.

Now the utility says customers were overcharged and that corrections will be made to affected customers in the next two to six weeks in the form of a credit on future bills.

According to Environmental Services Director Ellen Smyth, as many as 122,000 customers were affected by the system glitch.

The utility's website is asking for patience as they're dealing with a high volume of calls.

“We apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience,” President and CEO John Balliew said. “Please bear with us as we deal with the challenges of being understaffed. We encourage our customers to email us at customer.service@epwater.org or visit our new My Account at epwater.org that offers multiple self-service options in English and Spanish.”

This is a developing news story. Download the KVIA news app to get alerts the moment news breaks.