To avoid having their water shut off, a Hempfield Township couple facing an astronomical water bill may end up having to pay for 100,000 gallons of water they say they didn't use.

Matt and Cindy Blaschak received a $496 water bill in January from Greenville Municipal Authority. The bill was more than five times what the Bentley Avenue couple usually pay for their monthly water usage and followed a $200 catch-up bill they paid in November. The authority had not read the couple's water meter in at least 16 months.

Tuesday, Mrs. Blaschak and her lawyer James Douglas met with the authority board and its solicitor Warren R. Keck III to discuss the water bill, which the Blaschaks are disputing.

Mrs. Blaschak said she paid the $200 catch-up bill, as well as some money for January's bill.

"I've paid all my bills since then," she said. "I even sent $80 for the disputed period, because in the past 15 years we've been in the home, that has been our average bill."

Last month, authority board chairman Dick Miller said he'd left instructions for the Blaschaks' water not to be turned off while the problem was being resolved.

But, Mrs. Blaschak said, authority officials called Douglas Friday to inform him the Blaschaks' water would be turned off in 10 days for nonpayment.

"They didn't call me, they didn't even send me a certified letter this time," Mrs. Blaschak said. "They called my lawyer and told him."

Tuesday's meeting, she said, was supposed to be an appeal hearing to dispute the water shut-off.

At the meeting, she said, Keck produced documents saying the bill in January -- for 119,000 gallons of water used -- was to make up for the period when the Blaschaks' meter was not read.

Mrs. Blaschak said she was told the November bill was the result of an improper reading. The meter reading, she said Keck told her, should have reflected 100,000 gallons the authority says the couple used over 16 months, in addition to the 7,500 gallons a month the couple was usually billed for.

Douglas said he may call an expert witness to talk to the board about the possibility that the couple's water meter is faulty. The Blaschaks were told by the meter's manufacturer that blasts of air caused by water-pump problems the authority experienced last fall could have produced faulty readings.

Last month, the authority board sent the meter to the manufacturer to be tested. Tuesday, Miller said the tests had come back and the meter was accurate.

Board members declined to comment on the status of the Blaschaks' complaint, saying it was an "accounting matter" and "not information for the public to know."

The hearing was continued until an unspecified date.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Amanda Smith-Teutsch at: ateutsch@sharonherald.com