The amount of radium in DeKalb water is insignificant, but the cost of making people aware of it isn’t.

The public will be notified by mail of the radium violation in the water every 90 days, DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow said. The mailings are required by the Illinois Pollution Control Board, which issued the violation.

The cost of each mailing will be $2,000 to $3,000, Sparrow said.

“It will cost tens of thousands of dollars (to notify the public and study the problem),” he said. Sparrow hopes he will only have to make three or four mailings before the matter is taken care of, he said.

New, stricter regulations make radium violations more likely, Water Department Superintendent Gerald Bever said. The new allowable level of radium content is five picocuries of radium isotopes 226 and 228 per liter of water. The old standard was 15 picocuries of gross alpha particles (a radioactive decay particle) per liter.

Bever said every resident of DeKalb is on the city’s water system so they should all receive notification soon.

Bever is expecting the IEPA to reconsider its standards for radium content, since 138 communities in Illinois are in violation, he said.

DeKalb will be prohibited from any water main extensions, which will affect several projects already in progress, Bever said.

The only solution to save DeKalb money is to go before the Illinois Pollution Control Board and petition for a variance, which will temporarily lift the restrictions, Bever said.

The city will still lose money because the variance takes three to four months before it comes before the Pollution Control Board, he said.