Aiming to address a disparity in what Illinois residents pay for the water they use for drinking, cooking and bathing, proposed legislation in Springfield would require a comprehensive review of water rates throughout northeastern Illinois. The review would initially focus on how rates are set in communities that use water from Lake Michigan, but eventually include an analysis of rates throughout the entire state.

The goal of the legislation, proponents said, is to make water rates across Illinois more affordable and equitable. Several sponsors of the legislation in the Illinois House and Senate represent communities in the suburbs south and west of Chicago where residents pay some of the highest rates in the state.

“We have to finally monitor the rates that our residents are being charged for water,” said state Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, the sponsor in the House.

The proposed legislation, lawmakers said, is in response to “The Water Drain,” a series of stories the Chicago Tribune published in 2017. The Tribune found that residents in the region’s lowest-income communities pay more for their water — as much as six times more — than residents in the wealthiest towns. The series also found that residents of towns with majority African-American populations pay a monthly water bill that is 20 percent higher than towns with majority white populations. At the same time, some of those towns lose more than a third of their water to leaking infrastructure.