DeKalb’s often at odds with its own community over issues relating to its water supply, and has been for almost 30 years.
- In 1996, City of DeKalb opposed citizens who wanted radium removed from the groundwater supply.
- In 2016, the city began hiding a growing dependency on water sales for running general operations by charging the Water Fund directly and secretly.
- In 2020, DeKalb signed a water use agreement with newcomer Meta/Facebook that essentially doubled Meta’s water allowances under an amendment six months later that was publicized as merely a couple of “scrivener’s errors.”
The city now properly mitigates the radium content of our water, but Water Fund usage and industrial water users are recurring topics. The posts listed below are foundational, but do consider checking the “water division” tag or using search terms with “water” in them (e.g., “water transparency”) for additional articles.
Charging the Water Fund for salaries in other departments is a masterpiece of nontransparency
A look back at DeKalb and its radium water
DeKalb’s tapping into regional water trends
DeKalb’s Transportation Fund a model for Water Fund budgeting transparency