Texarkana Water Utilities to roll out My TXK Water portal with hourly usage, leak alerts

TEXARKANA, Texas – Texarkana Water Utilities customers will soon be able to check their water use by the hour and get alerts about possible leaks through a new online portal, the utility announced Monday.

The portal, called My TXK Water, will roll out in four phases starting in early November. It arrives after nearly a year of complaints from customers who say their bills jumped after the utility installed new smart meters.

What the portal does

My TXK Water will show near real-time usage broken down by hour, day, week or month, according to the TWU announcement. Customers will be able to track their use during the billing cycle instead of finding out when the bill arrives.

Customers can also set alerts for unusual or continuous water use. The utility said the alerts are meant to catch leaks, running toilets and other unexpected use before the cost adds up.

“With this portal, customers will have the ability to see what’s happening with their water usage throughout the month, rather than finding out after the fact,” Texarkana Water Utilities Director Gary Smith said in the announcement. “Whether you’re trying to conserve water, keep an eye on your monthly usage or catch a leak before it becomes a bigger problem, this portal puts that information right at your fingertips.”

How to get access

TWU will open the portal to customers in four groups so customer service staff can help each group set up accounts before moving to the next. The utility has not said which customers will be in each phase.

Customers will get an email invitation with activation instructions when their phase begins.

Before then, TWU is asking every customer to make sure the email address and phone number on their water account are current. Customers can check or update that information by:

  • Logging in to the existing TWU billing portal
  • Emailing [email protected]
  • Calling customer service at 903-798-3800, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday

The utility said it will also send reminders by text and print them on paper bills.

Part of the new meter system

The portal is the customer-facing piece of the utility’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure program, which replaced older mechanical meters with ultrasonic meters.

According to a city FAQ dated Sept. 15, the system uses Diehl ultrasonic meters and Itron acoustic leak sensors. Each meter has a cellular modem that sends readings over the Verizon network three times a day, which ends manual meter reading. The FAQ says the meters will let TWU notify customers of an apparent leak at their home, typically within 48 hours.

City Manager David Orr told residents about the coming portal in January, when dozens of customers packed a Texarkana, Texas, City Council meeting to complain about bills that had doubled, tripled or topped $1,000. Several said the problems started when a new meter was installed. One resident said the utility’s data showed him using 400 gallons in a single hour around midnight.

The city, TWU and Riverbend Water Resources then held a community water forum on Feb. 2 with a help desk for individual billing questions. Later that month, city and TWU officials acknowledged that a software compatibility problem had caused some customers to be overbilled and others underbilled, the Texarkana Gazette reported. Officials said the meters themselves were working properly.

The city’s FAQ says the new meters record small and continuous flows that older meters missed, so many customers will see higher recorded use. It says that in most cases higher bills come from higher use, not a faulty meter, and it points customers to the portal to monitor and manage their use.

Not every customer accepts that explanation. In September, Texarkana attorney Shawn M. Morgan sued the city in Bowie County Court at Law, saying his bills rose from about $100 a month to between $600 and $900 after his meter was replaced, with no change in his household’s use. Among other records, he asked the utility to preserve the hourly and daily usage data and leak alerts from his meter, the same kind of data the new portal will show customers.

Rates went up Oct. 1

The portal launch follows the latest scheduled rate increase. The Texarkana, Texas, City Council approved higher water and sewer rates that took effect Oct. 1, the fifth step in a 10-year plan adopted in 2022 to replace aging pipes and plants. A typical home using 6,000 gallons a month will pay about $3.78 more, according to a TXKtoday analysis.

Customers also pay a Riverbend regional water plant fee of $5.16 per 1,000 gallons, which covers the city’s share of the $497.9 million regional treatment plant. That fee stays the same this year.

Water use is billed in tiers, so the rate per 1,000 gallons climbs as use goes up. That makes a leak or a long irrigation cycle more expensive than the same water used at lower volumes, one reason the utility is pushing customers to sign up for leak alerts.

If your bill looks wrong now

The city FAQ lists these options for customers who think a bill is too high:

  • Check toilets first. The FAQ says a leaking toilet can waste more than 100,000 gallons a month. TWU provides free dye tablets to test for leaks.
  • Ask for a meter accuracy test. The utility charges $50 for meters up to 1.5 inches.
  • Ask for a payment plan. The FAQ says TWU will set one up at the customer’s request when a leak causes a high bill.
  • Irrigation customers can have their meter turned off for the winter for a $15 turn-off and turn-on fee and avoid the monthly minimum while it is off.

For questions about the portal or a bill, contact TWU Customer Service at [email protected] or 903-798-3800.