Pender County, NC Water Use Rules: Leak Reporting Duty (2026)

Pender County Code § 32-122 sets the county's leak-adjustment procedure for water and sewer customers: any customer requesting an adjustment must notify Pender County Utilities of the existence of the leak and provide evidence of its repair, which in practice means documenting that a plumber or the customer fixed the line. Once the department confirms the leak existed and pins down how long it ran, it will issue a credit, but only to the extent that usage in any month during the leak period was at least twice as high as any monthly usage over the prior 12 months; the credit equals one half of the highest bill rendered during the leak.

Two limits cap the benefit: the adjusted bill can never drop below the minimum availability and debt service recovery charges for both water and sewer, and there is no adjustment at all for sewer billed at a flat rate. No more than one adjustment is allowed in any 12-month period, so a household with recurring leaks only gets relief once a year. The department reserves the right to require, at the customer's own expense, that a licensed plumber verify the leak, and it can deny any adjustment outright without the approval of the Pender County Water and Sewer District's board of directors, meaning the credit is discretionary rather than automatic even when the paperwork is in order.