Residents describe staggering bills, an alleged insider admission and growing interest in lawsuits against an out-of-state utility company. The Hood County Express is following the money, the records and the explanations that still do not add up.
By Hood County Express
Multiple Hood County residents have shown the Hood County Express water statements with amounts due exceeding $1,000.
One woman reported paying nearly $1,500 over the past month. When she moved into the neighborhood, she said, her bill was roughly $75 a month.
She said she does not have a swimming pool.
She said she does not water her yard.
Her account demands an explanation backed by records. A homeowner reporting that kind of increase deserves more than a suggestion to check for leaks and another payment deadline.
At 81, another resident, Roy Pepper, received a $669.13 water bill from CSWR-Texas. His statement showed no carried balance. The entire amount was for the current billing cycle.
“I am 81 years old and retired, I do not have another choice of where I can buy water,” Pepper wrote in a letter addressed to the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
For retirees who expected to spend the rest of their lives in these homes, the cost of water has become a threat to the affordability of staying there.
Residents are angry. They are organizing. Many are considering lawsuits.
The Hood County Express attended a town hall with dozens of residents who discussed their bills, concerns about the system and options for challenging the company.
A plumber who had checked one of the homes said he suspected a leak in the utility’s main water line. He also expressed the belief that the company wanted residents to bear the cost rather than absorb it itself.
Another resident relayed an allegation that raises questions about how this neighborhood is being treated.
According to that resident, a CSWR employee said the neighborhood has the highest rate of any neighborhood the company serves in Texas.
CSWR can substantiate or correct it by identifying the applicable rates across its Texas systems and explaining the differences. Residents deserve to know whether their neighborhood is carrying an unusually heavy burden and, if so, why.
The company has the records needed to answer.
The Express’s review already establishes something troubling without relying on that allegation: one household was billed for substantially less water and charged substantially more.
Across January through September 2025 invoices, the account recorded 117,243 gallons and $1,335.76 in charges. The corresponding 2026 invoices recorded 93,426 gallons and $1,777.87.
That household was billed for 23,817 fewer gallons and charged $442.11 more.
Billed consumption fell 20.3%. Charges rose 33.1%.
The summer comparison was even worse. Across June through September invoice dates, billed gallons fell 5.5% while charges increased 57.8%.
These comparisons use invoice periods rather than precisely matched calendar consumption periods. They nevertheless document a significant increase despite lower billed usage.
Residents who reduce their consumption should be able to understand why their bills continue climbing.
The larger statements also require careful accounting. Amounts due can combine current charges, previous balances and penalties. A statement exceeding $1,000 does not automatically mean one month’s water service cost that amount. The nearly $1,500 account is a resident’s report and requires the underlying billing and payment history to establish exactly what produced it.
Pepper’s $669.13 current charge, however, is documented.
The rate structure explains a substantial part of it.
The reviewed bills show a $61.60 monthly base charge, followed by $4.56 per 1,000 gallons for the first 4,000 gallons, $9.88 for the next 10,000 and $19.76 for consumption above 14,000 gallons.
Purchased-water and groundwater charges add another combined $2.15 per 1,000 gallons. A rate-case surcharge and regulatory assessment add more.
The highest usage tier costs more than four times the first tier before those additional charges.
On Pepper’s September bill, that highest tier alone generated $408.24.
A supplied November 2025 bill excerpt shows an earlier structure with a $71.25 base charge and a flat $8.64 per 1,000 gallons. Applying that structure, its surcharge and the same local pass-through rates to Pepper’s 34,660 gallons produces a modeled bill of $450.54.
The current structure produces $669.13.
That is $218.59 more for the same amount of water, an increase of approximately 48.5%.
Lower-use customers can fare better under the new structure. At 10,000 gallons, the current modeled bill is lower than under the late-2025 structure. The current model becomes more expensive at approximately 15,200 gallons.
The burden is concentrated on households reaching the upper tiers.
Pepper described large lots, mature trees and established landscaping. He said his water use was an effort to keep that landscaping alive. He worries that the expense of water and deterioration of the property could hurt his ability to sell his home.
That leaves a retired homeowner facing rising costs to maintain the property and fearing the financial consequences of trying to leave.
CSWR is part of a national utility business headquartered in the St. Louis area. Sciens Water lists Central States Water Resources as an active investment and describes a strategy of acquiring small, noncompliant systems and rehabilitating them.
The company’s customer notice lists a Missouri business address.
For the investors, these systems are part of a business portfolio. For residents, they supply the homes where they live.
That relationship requires real accountability, especially when customers say they have no alternative supplier.
CSWR has defended higher rates as necessary to finance reliable service. In a December 30, 2024 customer letter, it said it had invested approximately $50 million in Texas water and wastewater systems since 2019.
A statewide investment figure does not explain how much was spent on a particular neighborhood, which costs were assigned to its residents or why one household’s charges increased while its billed consumption declined.
Those are questions that should have clear, public answers.
The company’s own fee disclosures create another problem.
CSWR’s Texas customer webpage says the late fee is 5% of the unpaid balance. Its posted compliance tariff states 10%.
Three supplied invoices show prospective after-due-date increases equal to 10% of the water-service subtotal.
Pepper’s $669.13 bill rises to $727.82 after the due date. His earlier $541.79 bill rises to $589.10.
The printed amounts do not establish that those penalties were collected or that the tariff was violated. They do establish inconsistent information about a charge that can push an already difficult bill higher.
Customers should not have to reconcile a utility’s contradictory explanations before they can understand what they owe.
Meter-reading dates raise a specific question under Texas customer-protection rules.
Several records show readings on June 18, July 21 and August 18. Another bill runs from an August 18 reading to September 22.
Texas PUC rule 24.169 requires the lowest approved volume-rate block when a reading varies by more than two days from the normal meter-reading date.
That requirement is mandatory when its conditions apply.
The normal route schedule is needed to determine which bills qualified. A previous month’s date alone does not settle the question.
The potential effect is substantial. Applying the lowest volume tier to one bill with $887.56 in current charges, while retaining the base and other applicable charges, produces a conditional total of $364.98.
That $522.58 difference is not an established refund. It demonstrates why the company’s reading records need scrutiny.
There is evidence of a regulatory approval process for the rates. CSWR’s posted May 7 compliance filing cites an April 17, 2026 final order in PUC Docket 57386. The reviewed records do not establish that the entire rate structure was imposed illegally.
But a rate approval does not excuse an incorrect meter reading, an improperly applied charge or failure to follow a customer-protection rule.
The suspected main-line leak raised at the town hall also needs to be investigated with the correct records. Water escaping before a properly functioning household meter would not ordinarily register as that household’s consumption. Recovering system costs through rates is a separate issue.
Production records, purchased-water totals, billed consumption, documented losses, repairs and pass-through calculations can show what happened.
Residents deserve those explanations without being forced to finance a lawsuit to obtain basic answers about their bills.
CSWR’s history elsewhere shows why customers should insist on documentation.
On August 18, 2026, CSWR-Florida told the Better Business Bureau that its investigation found no meter-reading or billing error in a customer’s dispute. It described a field test and suggested that elevated consumption could reflect flow or a plumbing problem on the customer’s side.
Nine days later, the company changed its explanation.
In an August 27 response, it acknowledged that the meter had registered approximately 10 gallons for every five gallons actually used. It said the meter had been exchanged and calculated a $322.04 credit across two billing periods.
The company initially defended the readings. It subsequently acknowledged that the meter was registering roughly double the actual use.
That admission does not establish the same defect in Hood County. It demonstrates that the company’s first explanation can be wrong, with the customer left facing the financial consequences until the error is corrected.
In Kentucky, regulators ordered another CSWR company to return money to customers.
A February 14, 2024 order involving Bluegrass Water denied the proposed rates, approved lower ones and required refunds of amounts collected above the approved rates for service beginning December 1, 2023, through the order’s entry.
The interim collections had been subject to refund. The order was not a fraud finding. It established that the proposed charges exceeded what regulators ultimately found reasonable and that customers were entitled to the difference.
In Louisiana, regulators opened an audit of CSWR subsidiary Magnolia Water’s billing, customer service, acquisition practices and compliance with other regulatory agencies. The docket remains open. It represents ongoing scrutiny, not a completed misconduct finding.
Hood County has its own enforcement history.
A Texas Commission on Environmental Quality case involving Laguna Tres and Laguna Vista documented deficiencies identified in September 2021, including inadequate pressure-tank capacity, deficient system records, insufficient well capacity at Laguna Vista and a malfunctioning well-meter display at Laguna Tres.
The enforcement packet records $19,316 in assessed penalties, with $15,454 paid and $3,862 deferred.
CSWR has since publicized pressure-tank replacement and storage repairs at Laguna Tres. Its 2025 Laguna Vista drinking-water report states that the system reported no violations that year.
Those improvements matter. The current bills still demand answers.
What is driving the extraordinary amounts residents are reporting? Are the meters and account assignments correct? Were customer protections applied when reading dates shifted? How are infrastructure costs and system losses being allocated? Is the alleged statement about this neighborhood’s statewide rate ranking accurate?
The documents reviewed so far do not establish a criminal scam or deliberate targeting of retirees. They establish a substantial financial burden, inconsistent fee disclosures and specific questions that the company and regulators can resolve through records.
The Hood County Express stands with residents demanding that accountability.
CSWR should explain every disputed charge, document the condition of its infrastructure and correct every substantiated billing error. The PUC should examine compliance and require refunds wherever improper charges are established. Local officials should help residents bring their evidence before the agencies with authority to act.
Residents should not have to accept an unexplained bill simply because they cannot choose another company.
They should not have to spend their retirement fighting to understand the cost of water at their own homes.
The Hood County Express will continue following the bills, the corporate explanations, the alleged insider statement and the residents considering legal action.
There is more to come.
