'Whose' Water Money Begs The Question

The DuPage Water Commission has a $100 million surplus. This is after sending $75 million over to DuPage County. Now the various municipalities are lining up to get their 'share', in part, to prevent the County from coming in to take more. While I have my share of concerns over one taxing body raiding another's funds, I also have some concerns over the disposition of the surplus.

1) I live in a community that does not receive lake water. Since we have to pay the sales tax anyway, the first checks should go to those communities. West Chicago's request of the money collected in their town, even though it has its own water source, seems reasonable.

2) Given recent concerns that the Western Suburbs will experience a water shortage in the not too distant future, perhaps some money should be used to raise the regional fresh water capacity. This could be done by developing a reservoir system and/or creating a system to continuously recharge our depleted aquifers.

3) All of this begs the question "Do we still need a sales tax if we are constantly building significant surpluses?" Perhaps we should discontinue the tax until we need the money for developing water supply infrastructure.