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After weeks of questioning San Diego’s water department about water-meter retrofits and being told no retrofits are taking place at residential homes, NBC 7 Responds found one home where a botched smart meter replacement led to a customer being billed thousands of dollars more for water she did not use. After the discovery by NBC 7 Responds, city water officials disclosed five homes where meter replacements were done incorrectly. “Our bill for this last period is $4,831,” Pacific Beach homeowner Laura Ambrose said. Laura said her family usually pays around $200 every two months for 35 to 40 hundred-cubic-feet (HCF) of water. In her June-through-September bill last year, after Laura’s water meter was replaced with a new smart water meter, Laura saw her bill jump to more than $800. The city said she used 85 HCF of water.

San Diego County will get hit by the second storm of the week late Friday. But it will be weaker than Tuesday’s system and will do little to reduce the growing deficit in seasonal rainfall. The National Weather Service says the system is likely to drop about a half-inch of rain at the coast and twice as much across inland valleys and foothills by the time it moves east late Saturday. The system also could bring snow. But the storm is warmer, so the snow level will be at about 6,000 feet.

Over a dozen California cities, water agencies and environmentalists sued the state late Tuesday, alleging that state regulators have been secretly plotting and discussing a contentious $16 billion water project. The petitioners, led by Sacramento and San Joaquin counties, have uncovered public records that they claim prove that State Water Resources Board staffers discussed technical reviews and other documents regarding the California WaterFix with the project’s lead agencies.