The complaint — obtained by the Dayton Daily News this week — alleges that the city breached its contract with the county, first agreed to in 2018, by increasing water rates from 2019 through 2025 without providing required documentation.
County officials requested these documents — which included information about how rates and fees are determined — on several occasions since 2018 and did not receive them before rate increases, the suit alleges.
Last month, the city produced an updated copy of a report that detailed the city’s cash balances, and county officials noticed the numbers reported in that document differed from the prior year, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit states that after county officials examined these documents, “it was apparent that both reports contained significant reporting errors and incorrect formulas” that resulted in the city’s annual cash reserve being higher than the limit established in the water agreement.
Water quality
The county’s complaint also includes concerns surrounding per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the city’s water.
PFAS are a group of powerful, toxic chemicals created to be resistant to heat and other elements. PFAS are very difficult to break down due to their chemical composition, which consists of strong bonds of fluorine and carbon atoms. For this reason, they are often referred to as “forever chemicals.”
The county complaint points to a lawsuit the city of Dayton filed in 2018 against company 3M for forever chemicals contamination, with the city alleging “significant injury and damage” from PFAS detected in the city’s water supply wells.
“By virtue of its own allegations, the city has acknowledged that it is supplying water that is not ready for human consumption in violation of the Agreement,” the complaint says.
Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein said Dayton water is safe to drink, as it meets all “regulatory requirements.”
“We are committed to protecting the water and have taken countless actions to do so,” Dickstein said in a statement provided to the Dayton Daily News.
The city has filed lawsuits against the PFAS manufacturers and the Department of Defense to protect the water supply from PFAS contamination and to ensure that the cost of remediation is “borne by the parties responsible for contamination and not the innocent customers,” Dickstein said.
“We are disappointed that Montgomery County would make statements about our drinking water that seek to undermine the public trust and disregard the city’s ongoing work to ensure safe and high-quality water for our community,” she said.
A Dayton Daily News investigation in 2023 found that Montgomery, Greene and Warren counties were among the five counties in Ohio with the most water systems that detected PFAS over the U.S. EPA’s proposed limit of 4 parts per trillion — although this proposal has been paused by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Water agreement
Last week, Dickstein in a statement to the Dayton Daily News said that the current water agreement was the result of considerable negotiation and that since then the city and county had worked to resolve any questions.
The county’s court filing follows a December 2023 meeting with and letter to the city’s water department inquiring about “billing deviations” related to the county’s water rates. The city sent a letter to the county later that month, dismissing claims made about the city’s charges, according to the lawsuit.
On Friday, Montgomery County Administrator Michael Colbert said the county has not passed along increased water costs related to the alleged overcharging to its 230,000 customers, but added, the county “can no longer continue this practice and remain fiscally responsible to our residents.”
