KILLEEN - Need a cold glass of water this summer? Your neighbors might too and they could be getting it at your expense.

Lee Watts, code enforcement field supervisor for the city of Killeen, said some people are resorting to extreme means when it comes to water.

“We do enforce the local codes for stealing water,” Watts said. “Last month, there were 236,000 gallons of water that were unaccounted for. Now, that’s a lot of water.”

Individuals who steal water will do it one of several ways, Watts said.

They can turn the water on through the outside valve themselves.

When that happens, the utility department will be alerted and will shut the valve off and lock it until an account is established.

Some people may cut the lock or devise a system known as a jumper or stint, which can often be unsanitary or even dangerous, and that is when code enforcement gets involved.

Watts said that people who use a jumper or stint to steal water may create the device with used automotive parts, such as radiator hoses or old toilet parts.

Using the device to bypass the water meter can cause damage to the equipment and introduce impurities into the local water system, Watts said.

“People don’t understand that it works two ways,” he said. “You are not just pushing that stuff into your own home, and hurting your own family, but if the system has a low pressure drop ... we’ll suck that contaminant back into the public system. It’s dangerous to everybody.”

Watts said that, at times, meter readers will go to a home and find that a water meter is either missing or replaced with one that has been stolen from another house.

“They pull about 75 meters per month that are either unlawfully turned on or stolen,” he said.

Watts said to help combat this problem, the utility department could be getting a code enforcement officer of its own whose job it will be to help thwart water theft, but that depends on city council approval of that request for the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Of course, that kind of theft gets passed on to the regular citizens through increased water rates, but Watts said some people just don’t seem to get it.

“Some people’s mindset is that, it’s just water - well, it’s also a precious commodity,” he said.

Von Guide, the court clerk for Killeen Municipal Court Judge Barbara Weaver, agreed that water theft was indeed a problem the city was dealing with and has been prosecuting the crime for some time.

Ms. Guide said she didn’t have any firm numbers on how significant the problem was or how many cases like this end up in Judge Weaver’s courtroom.

However, she did say that anyone who is caught will be prosecuted.

“It’s a Class C misdemeanor,” she said. “It’s not unusual to have a case like that.”

That could result in a maximum fine of $500, but if the water meter is damaged in the commission of stealing water, then the fine could be as high as $2,000.

Watts said that since 9/11, fines could go as high as $250,000 because of the possibility of terrorism and if the entity affected is a commercial consumer.