DEP hits Queens woman, 86, with $22K water bill she says is mistake but which could make her lose her home

She’s getting soaked.An elderly Queens resident could lose her home after the Department of Environmental Protection slapped her with a $22,828.71 water bill — which she claims is completely inaccurate.Margaret McGowan, 86, says she had never paid more than $85 a month for the 50 years she’s lived at her Flushing home — but after the DEP shut her water meter off for about two years because of some repairs, they back charged her roughly $850 a month for that time.

It was a sum that would have represented about 10 swimming pools of water a month for the seniors’ small home if accurate, according to her supporters.“It was a shock to me to get the bill that high ..

.plus interest is accrued,” said McGowan. Now, after two denied appeals with the DEP, the Queens homeowner faces her final appeal with the Water Board.

State Senator John Liu (D-16) and State Assembly member Ed Braunstein joined McGowan in front of her home this morning to demand the DEP take responsibility for its wrongdoing. “DEP not only needs to cancel this ridiculous $22,000 bill.They need to issue an apology to Mrs.

McGowan,” said Senator Liu, who expressed concern that this could be happening to other city residents. Trouble started in January of 2022, when the DEP discovered an equipment issue at Mrs.Mcgowan’s home and froze her bill for two years while the agency remedied the meter problem.Once it was resolved in January of 2024, the agency sent a back bill for the elapsed time for the jaw-dropping figure.

Despite McGowan’s multiple attempts to appeal the charge – the DEP has not accepted responsibility.The agency has even threatened to put a lien on her home if she doesn’t pay the amount in full. The agency maintains that the sky-high bill must have been a result of an unknown leak at McGowan’s home – but lawmakers scoffed at the idea. “That would be ten swimming pools, and their suggestion that there was some kind of leak – Could you measure if there we...