When James McDonough first heard from the utilities department in July that his meter may have been failing to properly register his consumption, he arranged to have the faulty meter repaired.

A few weeks later that month, he got a $3,256.05 bill in the mail from the town for nine years of unpaid and outstanding water bills.

“I was told by the clerk that the bill goes back to 1999,” Mc- Donough said. “She also told me that I was sent numerous letters that there was a problem with my meter. I have never received any letter from the Water Department for nine years.”

McDonough had voluntarily participated in the town’s meter validation program during the summer months by filling out a form that asked residents to compare the reading from the meter inside their house with the meter posted outside of the house.

According to Jane Savastano, Salem’s director of finance, the Water Department had discovered a discrepancy in what the McDonoughs had been paying since 1999 when the water meter had begun to malfunction.

Salem uses a system of remote water-meters, in which an outside remote is mechanically linked to an inside meter that measures the actual water consumption of a household. Over time those outside meters may begin to break down as they age and give false readings, often in favor of the consumer.

“That’s the meter system that we have in Salem,” said Savastano. “When you have a meter that links to a remote, there will be discrepancies.”

Other cases like the Mc- Donough’s have come up, though none have been for that large of a bill, according to Savastano.

“They come up one by one,” she said. “The (McDonoughs) consumption had been dropping for many years. We completely understand that it’s a big bill, but we did make attempts to contact them.”

McDonough said the town told him that they had tried to contact him three times in the nine years his meter had been malfunctioning, though he had not received a notice from anyone in the town that he knew of.

“(Those) people could have sent a notice with the water bill and I would have responded,” he said. “I have no idea how to read a water meter. I don’t know cubic inches or cubic feet. What’s on the bill is what I pay.”

McDonough appealed the Board of Selectmen for an abatement last week and last night he watched them cut the bill down to $1,390.65 – about the cost of three years of water use based on the quarterly average consumption of his family – all that is allowed under the town’s statute of limitations.

For McDonough, approaching retirement, the final bill was just about what he could afford to pay.

“I just gave half that to pre-buy oil – 750 gallons – at $2,099 for the winter. And now these people are looking for a water bill back to ’99,” he said.

The board is planning on revisiting the issue at their Nov. 4 meeting and create a standard policy for evaluating what other residents, who like McDonough have bad or failing meters, should pay in the future.