Chicago Stormwater Berm 17 years in the making and 1 yr too late
Ξ August 31st, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Illinois, MS4 |
In Dyer, a suburb of Chicago, IL. homes were flooded recently from rains. That is not overly surprising since house flood across America all the time for various reasons. This case was a little different however.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
The Stormwater Management Board was formed in 1991, a year after Plum Creek flooded streets and homes in the Berens-Monaldi subdivision, the same area that flooded last week.
So the board to prevent this has been in place for over 15 years.
Neeb said the recent flooding was comparable to the floods of 1990 when hundreds of Dyer residents got water in their basements. About 150 houses got water in their yards and basements in the latest flooding.
If this is the case it sounds like the town needs to readjust their definition of a 10-year storm event and protect themselves accordingly.
“The water would have gone 1,800 feet along the berm then backed up at a low point and flowed into the subdivision,” Neeb said.
The Stormwater Management Board awarded Hasse Construction a $400,000 contract in 2006 to install an 1,800-foot-long berm along the creek.
Only half the work has been completed due to construction delays.
So it’s taken 17 years to come up with a half million dollars to build a berm that the city already knows isn’t going to work? On top of that, the construction company is suffering from delays and the city officials don’t seem to be rushing things along very quickly.
The National Stormwater laws have changed at least 3 times since 1991. I’m somewhat shocked that the residents aren’t completely up in arms about this.
Giant Flood….17 years spent talking about how to prepare with no actual preparation…. Giant Flood.
-Stormwater Guru
Technorati Tags: stormwater, dyer, chicago, flood, hasse, illinois
Powered by ScribeFire.