A dispute over who should be financially responsible for water main breaks and an unpaid water bill of nearly $600,000 (brought on by service charge increases one side viewed as illegal) has resulted in around a decade of ongoing litigation between North Farm and the Bristol County Water Authority (BCWA) – one piece of which made it as far as the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

Through an examination of court documents and reviewing correspondence from attorneys representing both sides of the matter, the Phoenix will attempt to summarize the history of events that has led up to the modern day, ongoing legal battle between the local water authority and the 300 townhouse-style condos that make up North Farm.

To properly do so, we must go back in time to 1993.

This is when, according to records from the Rhode Island Superior Court, the Bristol County Water Authority first alerted management at North Farm that they needed to update their water metering system – from a system first installed in the 1970s and 1980s that that utilized multiple meters to measure water usage at each individual building, to a master metering system that would comply with updated federal OSHA regulations and simultaneously net the condo association around $30,000 annually in savings.

Court records report that North Farm allegedly did not act on this request until the spring of 1995, but ultimately did take a vote from their Board of Governors to go forward with BCWA’s recommendation for the master meter system, which was installed and began a nearly 20-year period of calm.

All hell, and water, breaks loose
From 2014 to 2017, a series of four water pipe bursts occurred at North Farm, which took the position that they should not be responsible for repairing them, as in their view BCWA had retained “perpetual ownership” of the mains when they were first installed.

BCWA disagreed, and refused to pay for the repairs. North Farm ultimately footed the bill, but brought BCWA to court to try and recover the money spent, which originally amounted to nearly $60,000. That suit is ongoing, and North Farm has since acknowledged BCWA should only be responsible for two of the mains, and is now seeking reimbursement of $26,479.

“It is the BCWA’s position that the evidence at trial will show that the BCWA is not responsible for these pipe repairs either,” said Joseph A. Keough Jr., attorney representing BCWA, in an emailed statement on the ongoing issues.

But the pipe bursts are just one small piece of the legal puzzle, as the larger issue at hand relates to service charges that have incurred after BCWA raised rates at North Farm in January of 2019.

North Farm, in a letter to its residents on July 1, 2024 from John D. Deacon, Jr., an attorney representing the North Farm Home Owners Association, Inc., makes the claim that BCWA’s decision to raise rates at North Farm were illegal, because they ultimately amounted to a reneging on a perpetual master metering agreement the parties entered into when the master meters were installed in the mid-90s – because the new charges amounted to an increase in costs similar to how they would have been billed before the master meter was installed.

North Farm refused to pay the higher bill, which racked up in an accounts receivable maintained by BCWA amounting to $595,000 between July of 2019 and June of 2024.

BCWA contended in court that there was no such perpetual master metering agreement entered by the parties, and that argument won out in Superior Court in a decision handed down in February of 2022.

North Farm appealed that decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court, but the state’s highest court concurred with the Superior Court in a decision passed down in June of 2024.

“North Farm could have paid the new master meter service charge under protest while it challenged the legality of the service charge, and if it had been successful in its challenge, which it was not, the payments would have been refunded and it could have avoided these interest charges,” Keough Jr. said in his statement. “Similarly, since the 2019 service charge was declared legal, North Farm could have avoided the interest charges by paying the service charge as it became due.

“As of this date, North Farm still has not paid the full balance owed to the BCWA on its water bill, and it continues to accrue the monthly once percent (1%) interest charge.”

Claim of illegal sale of water
The last piece, which remains to be fought out in court, is a claim that BCWA collected over $925,000 in “criminally illegal sales of unmetered water” which stemmed from a period between 2014 and 2021 when a water meter at North Farm was malfunctioning.

North Farm is seeking reimbursement on the charges incurred during the time the meter was broken, but BCWA contends that charging for water while a meter is inoperable based on historical and estimated usage is a standard practice for the water authority, and in fact they were undercharged on water usage during that time.

“North Farm claims it is entitled to free water during the period when the meter malfunctioned even though North Farm acknowledges that it received water during this period and there was no interruption in its water service,” Keough Jr. wrote. “The facts at trial will show that based on North Farm’s average water usage for a twenty-year period before the meter malfunctioned, North Farm was underbilled by approximately $52,465 during pendency of the malfunctioning meter.”

In the letter to North Farm residents, attorney Deacon, Jr. wrote that neither the payment for the pipe repairs, nor the payment of the $595,000 in unpaid bills, would “affect the financial stability of North Farm.” He added that the ongoing legal issues over the ownership and responsibility of pipe mains would not affect condo owners’ ability to transfer titles of their properties.

Deacon, Jr. did acknowledge, however, that “North Farm’s loss on the claim to enforce the 1995 master meter agreement with BCWA will effectively doubles [sic] the cost of water for homeowners going forward.”
However, he added that this liability “will be” reduced or offset “by a $150,000 deposit paid by North Farm to secure and appeal bond, and also by the following claims of North Farm: $200,000 deduction for absence of any operational water meter from 2019 to 2021; BCWA’s failure to maintain distribution pipes downstream of the meter; North Farm’s claim against BCWA for seven years of criminally illegal sales of unmetered water ($458,000 plus interest, for a total of $925,000); and North Farm’s claims of BCWA’s 65 year/older discounts, which amounts to approximately 15% of BCWA’s charges claimed, both accrued and going forward.”

Keough, Jr., in response to those claims, argued that the claim of illegal sales of unmetered water was a pending legal claim that had no base in facts.

“The BCWA strongly disagrees with this statement,” he wrote. These claims are the subject of pending litigation… There was absolutely no criminal action on the BCWA’s part, and the BCWA is currently evaluating all legal remedies for the libelous statements contained in North Farm’s Attorney’s July 1, 2024 letter.”