Westbury residents expressed shock and outrage over water bills they received in the mail last week, describing what they called an "exorbitant" increase.

Several residents called The Westbury Times to report the matter, and a community meeting has been organized to fight the increase.

Resident Patrick Hickey said his bill for water use from May to October was $175, up from $65 for the same period last year.

"My bill tripled," he said. "We need an explanation of this."

His neighbor, Rose Propper, said her bill was $500 for May to October, up by $350 over the same period last year. "I was shocked," she said, noting that although she has an underground lawn sprinkler system, she doesn't know how she could have accrued such a bill. She said she has been a resident for 52 years, and there are only two people living in the house. "I'm 73 years old on Social Security, and I can't afford this water bill," she added.

"This is exorbitant," said a 40-year resident of Westbury, who wished to remain anonymous. He noted that his bill for water use from May to October was $187, up from $88 for the same period last year.

Italo Vacchio, superintendent of the Westbury Water District, said he has been responding to residents' complaints, but that the expensive water bills have resulted from a rate increase coupled with high usage.

"We had a rate increase, and this is the second 6-month billing period in that rate increase. We went to a step-rate system," said Vacchio.

"But the people have used the water, a tremendous amount of water," he added. "This summer was an extremely dry summer, and they've used the water. I'm trying to help them. I've checked their houses for leaks ... A lot of people have used a lot of water."

The rate increase was implemented a year ago. It went from a flat fee of $1 per thousand gallons to the following step-rate system. For the first 20,000 gallons, which is considered a minimum bill, the cost is $20. For 20,000 to 60,000 gallons, the rate is $1.25 per thousand gallons. For 60,000 to 100,000 gallons, it is $1.50 per thousand gallons. For greater than 100,000 gallons, the rate is $2.40 per thousand gallons.

Explaining the rate increase, Vacchio said, "It costs us more money to pump the water that the people use. So as they use more water, the cost for us to pump it into the system goes up. We have to pay our LIPA bills, we have operating costs. Plus we're doing some major improvements to the district through a bond issue which we have to pay off. We have to put another well in, we're doing some treatment facilities at three wells. And we're doing a lot of infrastructure improvements which we have to pay off."

Besides lawn sprinklers, toilets typically account for high water usage, and a leaky toilet could cause a larger than expected bill. The district is providing leak detectors to residents to help combat this problem, according to Vacchio.

"We didn't get these complaints the last time they got their bills because they didn't use that amount of water," said Vacchio. "With the combination of the dry summer and the rate increase, they have high bills," he added, noting that some people have bills for 200,000 to 300,000 gallons of water for the summer.

But Chester McGibbon, a local community leader who is vice-president of the Westbury High School PTA, said that people throughout Westbury are in disbelief over the increase.

"We're outraged," he said, noting that there is a community effort underway to under way roll back the increase.

"We're reaching out to community leaders," he said, noting that a flier alerting residents of the situation will be blanketing the community this week.

The flier asks residents, "Have you checked your recent water bill?" and, "Are you going to take this lying down?" and invites all to a community meeting on the issue.

At press time, the community meeting had been planned for Wednesday Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m. at the Westbury Recreation Center. Village government and water district officials, as well as residents and community leaders had been invited.

McGibbon added that "there is absolutely no justification for this outrageous increase in our water bills."

The approximate 200 percent increase in the bills has presented a real burden to homeowners, he noted, especially those with low and fixed incomes. "We want to show a massive force in the community," McGibbon said, noting that residents want the water bills to be reasonably rolled back.