Do the math - Family billed for 1.4 million gallons of water.

Over at FOXnews you have a report on a Utah family getting billed for 1.4 million gallons of water in 107 days. Now while the obvious answer to:

"When water goes through a meter, they (customers) are obligated to pay for that." - Craig Frisbee

is you've got a faulty meter, I'm more interested in just looking at this in terms of the real world.

1.4 million gallons is roughly four acre feet and this family has a two acre plot, enough water to drown their property two feet deep in water. On average, their entire two acres of land was submerged in 0.25" (~6 mm)of water every day for three-and-a-half months. During the wet season. And since the owner only irrigates about a third of his parcel, that makes it 0.75" (~18 mm)deep per day.

Of course they were also out of town for a third of this time, so that'd just inflate it further.

If I was the town, I think I'd forgive them this one. Unless they think this family was planting rice.