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HAMILTON — It was not one mistake — but a series of errors — that led Butler County Environmental Services to undercharge Pierre Foods for sewer service for more than three years, according to county documents.

The first error, as reported in the JournalNews Saturday, July 19, occurred when the West Chester Twp.-based food vendor was placed on the utility's no-peaking list in 2003 for reasons county officials say were never determined. This led the county to undercharge the company $856,510 over more than three years, officials said.

Due to a policy that allows the county to only back bill for one year, the county is recouping $194,497. But that number is based on another error, Environmental Services Director Sue Vance stated in a March 29, 2007 letter to the company.

At the same time the company's peaking status was changed, the number of sewer units the county owns was incorrectly increased from 728 to 791. This brought down the price of the back billing roughly $40,000, county officials said.

In the 2007 letter, Vance references a 2005 e-mail from the company to the county pointing out the error, though the county did nothing about it until August 2006. This illustrates another mistake.

Vance stated in the letter that county staff didn't look into the problem because the company was one of 208 on the no peaking list. "Your inquiry did not raise a flag, but it should have — and we admit that," Vance wrote.