EVANGELINE PARISH, La. (KLFY) Residents of a small Evangeline Parish community say they’ve been taken advantage of for far too long and overcharged for water.

Were getting answers into tonight’s Dial Dalfred report.

Since July, 2019, Jeremy Gallow says he’s been keeping a close eye on his water bill.

“They charged me a $500 saying I used 115,000 gallons of water in one months time. It’s no way. Like, I explained to them in the meeting that’s a 30 acre crawfish field, if you do the math.”

“One of the issues is whenever the meter reader comes out to read the meters, a lot of the time they look like what you see here; either full of water or sometimes even filled with mud. When the resident comes out to see what the number was they can’t see the number and obviously neither could the meter reader.”

“If you not charging the amount of money, there’s a scheme somewhere going on and I don’t think that’s fair to anyone.”

Gail McDavid is the president of Chataignier Water System.

McDavid says the five elected members of water board serve as a kindness to the their village.

“We have nothing to gain by people thinking we’re trying to overcharge them because we want to make more money. None of the five board members get any compensation.”

However, with only a few volunteers and water service to about 370 homes, McDavid says mistakes do happen. Once a resident reports a problem.

“We will take that meter reading and compare it to what we have already to see if it’s not incorrect or malfunctioning or a number didn’t get transposed.”