South Whitehall flush with confusion after sewer bill error

A billing error triggered by a printing mix-up caused some South Whitehall Township residents to pay their sewer bill thinking it was their water bill.

Township Manager Renee Bickel told the Board of Commissioners on Wednesday that the third-party vendor responsible for printing and mailing out the quarterly water and sewer bills accidentally printed the sewer bills twice, and not every customer who received them caught the error before mailing in their payment.

The mistake affected about 1,600 customers in the township, she said.

The bills, due Aug. 31, were mailed out last Friday and the township became aware of the problem by Sunday, when it posted an alert on its website as well as on the community’s Nextdoor neighborhood app.

Corrected bills were mailed Tuesday, she said, “and sent out with an explanation apologizing for that error and inconvenience to the residents.”

Some residents realized the goof “when they read the description on the bill,” she said, but others just went ahead and sent in the payment.

The bills come on colored paper, with the water bills printed on blue paper and the sewer bills in yellow, and some residents may have just gone by the familiar color when writing their checks.

No penalties will be assessed, Bickel said.

In other business, Bickel said that nighttime lane closures will begin Aug. 19 along Cedar Crest Boulevard from Walbert Avenue to Interstate 78 as PennDOT conducts road improvements.

Lanes will be shut down 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. for about two months, she said.