Lake Michigan water rates have been surging throughout the Chicago region in recent years, squeezing low-income residents and leaving them with little, if any, recourse, a Tribune analysis shows. In this tangled network that delivers water to the vast majority of the region’s residents, the Tribune found an upside-down world, one where people in the poorest communities pay more for a basic life necessity than those in the wealthiest. And the financial pain falls disproportionately on majority-African-American communities, where residents’ median water bill is 20 percent higher for the same amount of water than residents pay in predominantly white communities, the Tribune’s examination revealed. Consider Ford Heights, a cash-strapped, predominantly African-American suburb south of Chicago. People there pay nearly six times more for the same amount of water than residents of Highland Park, a wealthy, predominantly white town on the North Shore — and four times more than Chicago residents. In the end, little is stopping local leaders from raising rates even more: Illinois regulators have no oversight authority over towns’ water rates. “Their residents are experiencing a regressive kind of tax that is having a significant impact on their quality of life,” said Robert Bullard, professor of urban planning and environmental justice at Texas Southern University. “We call that environmental injustice because people who have the lowest amount of money are forced to pay the most for basic services,” added Bullard, who has written extensively about racial disparity in public services. Community leaders offer a variety of explanations for the high rates. Some acknowledge that residents are paying for significant amounts of water lost through cracked pipes and leaky hydrants. Others say they are imposing higher rates to pay exorbitant replacement costs of that infrastructure. Twitter

Facebook “We call that environmental injustice because people who have the lowest amount of money are forced to pay the most for basic services.” Robert Bullard professor of urban planning and environmental justice at Texas Southern University Through it all, little accountability exists, both in the rates they set and how well the communities maintain their systems. In the past two years, two towns — Harvey and Maywood — have been singled out for mismanagement or fraud. Unlike other utilities such as electricity and natural gas, and unlike other states’ policies, Illinois allows the local officials who collect the water revenue also to set rates. Robert Hylton is living with the consequences. The western suburb of Maywood, where Hylton has resided in a tidy, orange brick ranch since the late 1970s, shut off his water in May while he was rinsing a cup at breakfast, he recalled. “I couldn’t finish my breakfast,” the 77-year-old widower said, standing in his kitchen on a Thursday afternoon in late June. A fly buzzed around a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. “I threw everything in the garbage.” Robert Hylton lived without water this past summer. The village of Maywood disconnected it without notice, he said, only to restore it later. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) Water rates in Maywood are among the highest in the Chicago region, in part to pay for the 38 percent of water the village loses before it ever reaches the taps of residents like Hylton. Seconds after Hylton’s water was shut off, he walked to his front door and saw a Maywood Water Department worker on the lawn near the valve, he recalled. Hylton said he told the man that part of the water bill had been paid and he was hoping to arrange a payment plan. The worker said he merely was carrying out orders, then stepped into his van and drove away, Hylton said. The latest census figures show that Maywood has about 7,400 households. Last year, the village issued 1,436 water disconnection notices on residential and commercial accounts, records show, though it’s unclear how many of the notices led to water service being discontinued. If a resident loses water service — Maywood can disconnect after a bill is unpaid for 30 days — resuming that basic utility costs $300. That is one of the highest reconnection fees in the region, but those fees exist in other low-income, predominantly African-American towns. Chicago Heights’ fees and fines can reach several hundred dollars. Calumet Park charges $200. Ford Heights and Glenwood each charge $100. Those high reconnection fees make residents’ efforts to get water flowing again that much more challenging after scraping together enough to pay the sometimes-exorbitant balance on their water bills. The shutoff of Hylton’s water forced him to make a series of accommodations. He showered at a friend’s house down the block. He accepted containers of water from neighbors to wash dishes. He used a bucket in his garage to relieve himself, he said. His clothes went unwashed. Twitter

Facebook “You owe them a dime, they cut you off.” Robert Hylton “We cannot survive without water,” Hylton said. The retired security guard said he receives about $940 a month from Social Security and his mortgage payment is $680 a month. The bill he received on May 19 shows that he owed $333.28 for water on the original due date of May 15, and a $11.55 “penalty amount.” Printed on it are the words “Past Due Notice,” although the bill doesn’t specify the time period of his use or the amount of water he’d consumed. Then in late June, Hylton said he paid $300 toward the water bill, but the village declined to turn on his water, and wanted an additional $250, he recalled. He came up with the money a few days later, and his water service resumed in early July, Hylton said. Maywood did not respond to requests for comment on Hylton’s experience. “You owe them a dime, they cut you off,” Hylton said. “They have been very dirty to me. Very dirty. If I had enough money to get a lawyer, I would sue them.” A wide disparity In making its analysis, the Tribune requested water rates and demographic data from 163 communities with publicly managed systems that use Lake Michigan water. Of those, 162 responded. One community, Harvey, does not list rates on its water bills and did not respond to requests from the Tribune. The findings showed enormous differences across the region. Residents of Evanston, a majority-white city of 75,000 that draws its own water from Lake Michigan, paid the lowest rate for 5,000 gallons of water, $13.71. Two other heavily industrial communities with populations under 600 — McCook and Bedford Park — do not charge residents for water. About 45 miles south of Evanston is Ford Heights, which has a dwindling population and paltry tax base. There, residents are charged a flat fee of $85 a month — the second-highest amount per 5,000 gallons in the region. Only Indian Head Park, which recently raised its rates to pay for an ambitious infrastructure upgrade, is higher, at $87.50. Overall, towns with median household incomes in the bottom 10 percent of the region pay 31 percent more a month for water than towns with a median household income in the top 10 percent.

That disparity falls not only along income lines, but also disproportionately along racial lines. Of the 10 towns with the highest water rates, five, or 50 percent, are majority-black towns, while only 13 percent of communities surveyed by the Tribune have majority-black populations. Another indicator, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s affordability guidelines from 1998, concluded that spending more than 2.5 percent of an individual’s yearly income on a single utility bill signaled that the utility had “a large economic impact” on its residents. 3D TOUR: Who uses the lake? From factories to faucets and powerplants to parks, millions use Lake Michigan water Take the tour Residents in three towns that receive Lake Michigan water are under that strain. All those communities are predominantly African-American. Here are a few comparisons of what residents from towns with roughly equal populations pay per 5,000 gallons, the amount experts say is the monthly supply for a typical household: In Northfield, a high-income, predominantly white suburb, residents pay $36.34. In Posen, a majority-Latino south suburb where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, residents pay $64.60. Residents of Glenwood, a lower-income, predominantly black community, pay $67.60. In the largely middle-income, predominantly white suburb of Willowbrook, residents pay $48.35. And in Northbrook, a high-income, predominantly white community, residents pay less than $25. Consumers in Chicago Heights, a low-income, mixed-race community, pay nearly $36. And, although Indian Head Park and Ford Heights pay about the same for water, the bill throws a harder punch at Ford Heights’ residents, who have a significantly lower median household income. “It’s horrible. It really is,” said Illora Walker, while she sat in a lawn chair on her front lawn on a recent Tuesday afternoon. Her fixed monthly income is $1,034, she said. Her monthly rent: $900.

Even with a discounted water bill of $65 for seniors, she has trouble making ends meet. “By the time I pay my rent, light, gas and water, it’s over,” added Walker, 75. “The money is gone.” To bring in extra income, she said, she gathers aluminum cans and turns them in for 25 cents a pound. She eats for free at the neighborhood senior center six days a week to cut her food costs. Ruthie Beasley, 53, of Ford Heights, says the village's $85 monthly water bill is "a real hardship." (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) A few blocks away, Ruthie Beasley, also on a fixed income, called the standard $85 monthly water bill “a real hardship.” Since the village raised its water fee last year to that amount, she said, she missed a payment and had her water shut off for a day. A son pays most of Beasley’s water bill now, she said. Beasley, who has lived in a small, vinyl-sided ranch for eight years, said she has cut back on groceries and visits to the hairdresser. “A big part of it,” she added, “is that I don’t get to tithe the way I used to.

The cribs that collect drinking water from Lake Michigan serve nearly 80 percent of the region’s residents. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) Lake Michigan is the world’s sixth-largest freshwater lake and is second by volume of the five Great Lakes. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) The squandering of public water through ailing infrastructure comes at a time when Illinois and its Great Lakes neighbors have become fiercely protective of their bountiful source of freshwater. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) While the Great Lakes region’s leaders have put strict limits on who can access their prized resource, they are not always so disciplined about their own standards. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune) From Chicago's cribs in Lake Michigan, lake water flows through underground tunnels to a pair of purification plants — one just north of Navy Pier, the other near Rainbow Beach Park on the South Side — where it is cleaned, filtered and treated. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

From lake to tap The disparity has emerged even though nearly 80 percent of the Chicago region uses water from the same source — Lake Michigan, one of the world’s most bountiful supplies of freshwater. The Great Lakes contain more than 20 percent of the world’s total surface freshwater supply and 84 percent of North America’s fresh surface water. Lake Michigan, the world’s sixth-largest freshwater lake, is second by volume of the five Great Lakes. The city of Chicago, which collects the lake water in two cribs about 2 1/2 miles from shore, provides most of that water. From the cribs, it flows through underground tunnels to a pair of purification plants — one just north of Navy Pier, the other near Rainbow Beach Park on the South Side. At the plants, the water is cleaned, filtered and treated, yielding fresh, potable water ready for distribution. A dozen pumping stations move the water — via 4,000 miles of pipe — throughout the city. In addition to supplying water to its residents, Chicago supplies water to dozens of towns and agencies, some of which in turn sell it to others. The DuPage Water Commission, for example, buys its water from Chicago and pumps it to 25 other communities, areas of unincorporated DuPage County, Argonne National Laboratory and privately run systems. The web of connections can yield a scenario in which a town receives Lake Michigan water after it passes through three or four other communities or providers. Each transaction generates a markup. Delivering water that way can lead to incrementally higher rates for communities farther from Lake Michigan, but that alone does not account for the broad disparity in water rates across the region. The small southwest suburb of Indian Head Park is one example. It receives Lake Michigan water from Countryside, which receives it from McCook, which receives it from Chicago. Chicago charges McCook a wholesale rate that works out to $19.05 per 5,000 gallons. McCook sells it to Countryside at $24.30 and Countryside charges Indian Head Park $29.90. By the time Indian Head Park sells its water to residents, the rate is $54.50 per 5,000 gallons. That rate, coupled with a $33 service charge, makes it the highest bill for 5,000 gallons among all communities the Tribune surveyed.