A St. Catharines woman got soaked with a staggering city water bill of $28,000.

After a week of worrying, she’s finally learned the reason why.

Carmen Bedard says she was scared to turn on her tap after receiving the whopping water bill from the city.

Last Friday, the city alerted Bedard about high water consumption at her house.

Her meter read that she had used over 9-thousand cubic metres of water, which translates to nearly 2.4 million gallons.

To put that into perspective, thats nearly enough water to fill 4 olympic sized swimming pools.

Normally her water bill is closer to $140.

Bedard says she was then certain it was a faulty meter.

The city had replaced her old one with a new meter about two years ago.

So she enlisted the help of Councillor Mike Britton.

City staff confirmed this afternoon that the meter’s register wasn’t functioning properly and they would void her bill.

Staff say they began replacing old meters with new ones in 2014, but this situation was an anomaly.

Adding they would continue to monitor the situation.