Reprieve in Robeson: County won’t disconnect water for residents with overdue bills
For now, Robeson County residents who haven’t paid their utility bills won’t lose access to water, after county officials reversed a previous decision to shut off service to their homes.
On Saturday, Robeson officials posted a notice on the county’s Facebook page stating that residents must pay their entire past-due balance in water bills by Thursday to avoid disconnection. A statewide order in March allowed North Carolinians — many of whom are unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic — to temporarily stop paying their utility bills.
But Robeson’s Facebook post was not in compliance with N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper’s executive order, the N.C. Attorney General’s office said this week. The order, made in response to the pandemic, required that municipalities offer residents a six-month repayment plan for their past-due utility bills.
“Our office contacted Robeson County about this issue ... and made them aware that customers have to be provided an opportunity to enter into a reasonable payment plan,” Laura Brewer, communications director at the N.C. Attorney General’s Office, wrote in an email to The News & Observer on Wednesday.
Robeson County Residents must request a repayment plan by Aug. 20. Repayments from previous months must be made in tandem with that month’s water bill.
As of June 30, Robeson County Water had 1,089 residential accounts past due for a total debt of $266,762. In comparison, as of June 2019, there were only 380 residential accounts past due with a total debt of $16,286.
Ban doesn’t apply to municipal utilities
The executive order covered only municipal and cooperative utilities, which are not regulated by the N.C. Utilities Commission as corporations like Duke Energy are.
On Wednesday, the N.C. Utilities Commission extended its shutoff ban for utilities that it regulates, such as Dominion Energy and Duke Energy, until at least Sept. 1, the Charlotte Observer reported.
Municipally-owned utilities, such as the Robeson County Water Department, are not subject to the extension as they are not regulated by the NCUC.
The moratorium on disconnections of municipally utilities expired Wednesday night, though the executive order still requires that a six-month repayment plan be offered to residents.
From April 1 to July 20, calls for utility payment assistance in North Carolina averaged around 58 per day. From July 21 to July 27, as the state moratorium on municipal utilities was ending, calls were up to 202 per day, according to the Health Communication Research Laboratory at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
More stress on rural counties
Rev. Mac Legerton, co-director of the Robeson County Cooperative for Sustainable Development, said that Robeson county officials made an error that added a layer of stress to populations in the county that are already experiencing financial hardship due to the coronavirus.
“This whole situation, this tragic situation of adding more stress to our residents, is due to some of our public officials not keeping themselves fully informed of all aspects of state pandemic policies,” Legerton said.
“Rural counties are under a significant level of stress during this pandemic that the larger public is not aware of.”
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 1:48 PM.