'No One Was Denied Water' At Lake County Jail During Outage

WAUKEGAN, IL — No one was denied water during a planned outage that lasted more than two days in the Lake County Jail, according to county officials. Running water was turned off between the morning of Nov. 8 and the afternoon of Nov. 10 in order to install a new pump.

Inmates were provided with two bottles of water per shift from guards, for a total of six each day. For each area of about 60 cells, inmates were also given a 55-gallon barrel of water to flush toilets, according to County Administrator Barry Burton.

"There was plenty of water available," Burton said. "So while the primary supply of water was shut off, alternative water was continuously supplied to the inmates for the entire duration of the project."

Zakee Dair, of Zion, told the board he had been receiving complaints from relatives of those at the jail.

"The families' concern was the sanitary conditions that that would create when you have that type of facility with no running water," he said.

"This is an outrage from the families that's coming to us and I wanted to bring it before the board," Zair told commissioners during public comment.

"I think it was more an issue of communicating," County Board President Aaron Lawler said. "At no time, to my knowledge, was anyone denied water."

Those at the jail were given advance notice of the closure, but the commissioners and families of inmates were not.

"Notification was provided to the inmates, however, as part of the routine project we didn't notify the board, we could have done a better job of that," Burton said, noting the county doesn't necessarily have the ability to contact the families.

Undersheriff David Hare told the Lake County News-Sun that no formal complaints have been received about the shutdown, which was necessary due to the impending failure of the previous water pump. But Lake County Black Lives Matter Chairman Cylde McLemore said there hadn't been enough airflow to deal with unflushed toilets, describing the detainees treatment as "inhumane" and "the stuff third world countries do."

_{Top photo: Lake County Jail | Google Street View}