Last night, Rance Moore stood up to speak in the crowded Topsail Middle School cafeteria.
"The rate for water in Wilmington," he said, "is $8.65 per thousand gallons. According to my bill from you, for the same amount of water, it's $27.96."
[Editor's note: According to CFPUA's most recent rate schedule, the cost per thousand gallons is even less, at $4.74.]
Some folks in the audience gasped. Many of them laughed. But the person Moore was addressing — Don Denton, president of Carolina Water Service — cut in.
"We are regulated," he said, "and we have to cover our costs."
"You're more than covering your costs," Moore said.
Moore, who lives in Harbor Village in Hampstead, is a customer of Carolina Water Service, a private water company headquartered in Charlotte. He's one of the dozens of customers who attended a meeting last night to address concerns over water quality and rates.
Hampstead locals living in Belvedere Plantation and Olde Point say they've been dealing with water quality issues for months. Some have said their water sometimes comes out brown or discolored. Others said it can come with a strong odor.
But overall, the biggest complaint was the price.
"I had a $3,741 bill for a month," said one resident. "For a leak!"
"Your customer service is poor, your product is poor, and you charge way too much for it," another said.
Denton and other Carolina Water Service representatives came to the meeting last night in an attempt to clear the air. But things turned tense quickly. Company officials could not confirm whether they'd bring rates down, saying only that they were exploring other funding options.
"We understand that rates are an issue, we are trying to look at options," he said. "We are looking for options of seeking other funds, other ways of offsetting these costs. But know that we do have investments that need to be made in order to keep these systems compliant [with state and federal regulations]."
Denton said the water quality issues came from the neighborhoods' aging infrastructure. He said that Carolina Water Service was seeking government grants to help meet the costs required to update it. He also said that the company had hired an "independent engineer" from Wilmington firm McKim and Creed to assess the infrastructure and water quality.
Still, many locals said it wasn't enough.
"We don't really need a private water company," said one meeting attendee to applause. "Are y'all gonna back out? Can we fire y'all?"
The short answer is no. Carolina Water Service owns the water mains that these neighborhoods sit on. And since the company has not indicated any interest in selling them, residents have little choice but to continue being Carolina Water Service customers.
At one point, Pender County Commissioner Jackie Newton, who is currently running for reelection, stood up to clarify things for residents.
"It is a private enterprise that Pender County cannot interfere with," she said. "But we are willing and able to become a vendor to supply water, if that's the route that [Carolina Water Service] chooses."
