A REVIEW OF THE PROPOSED FLOODING SOLUTIONS BY THE 2013 DES PLAINESMAYORAL CANDIDATES

A REVIEW OF THE PROPOSED FLOODING SOLUTIONS BY THE 2013 DES PLAINES MAYORAL CANDIDATES

By Mr. Austin Stanton

I have watched the video of each of the mayoral candidates responseto the question posed at the recent debate at City Hall and have the following comments and observations:

           The first aspect of Tony Arredia’s solution is to add 8 acres of detention at Big Bend Lake. While that may indeed help with the issue of river flooding, it does not address the issue of local flooding due to inadequate or aging infrastructure. I believe that that solution would involve the Army Corp. of Engineers and therefore be outside of the City’s direct control, just as the Levee Projects were. Arredia’s solution to localized flooding entails underground detention. While this is an economical and practical solution for individual tracts of property, I believe that it is impractical and cost prohibitive for municipal systems. This solution would require large diameter pipes, buried underground, to hold the excess storm water and release it gradually into the watershed. Beneficial for Riverside, but expensive for Des Plaines. This solution would require replacing significant lengths of existing sewer with much larger pipes. It would involve, at a minimum, street replacement, deep excavation, and the removal of large amounts of soil. The capacity would have to be calculated by engineers. This system would be asmaller version of The Deep Tunnel Project, a 25 year, multi-billion dollarproject, that is still not complete. This concept would work in theory, but at great expense. Mr. Arredia seemed out of touch with the real issues that cause our flooding; namely inadequate and aging infrastructure and changes in weather patterns.

      Matt Bogusz’s response was that the city immediately began to identify the problems, put together a master plan to address them, and secure the funding to begin the process. Mr. Bogusz seems to have an understanding of the fundamental issues that are causing the flooding in our neighborhoods and is committed to following through. I am familiar with the results of the infiltration testing and flow monitoring that the city conducted in our ward in 2011 and the solutions that were recommendedby the engineers are practical.

   Mr. Walsten’s response made little sense in the context of the problems, showed minimal understanding of the fundamental issues, and appeared to favor putting the burden on the individual property owners. He referred to the use of an “injection system”, which was unclear to me, as a solution, and then digressed into a discussion about “gravity” and“water.” I felt that he had no idea of the real issues.

I have been deeply involved in the issue of flooding in our ward since 2008 and believe that I have a comprehensive understanding of all the factors that contribute to it. I recommended flow monitoring and infiltration analysis of the sanitary system in 2009 to determine the full extent of theproblem. The City conducted these tests in 2011, and I reviewed the results and recommendations submitted by the engineers. We have a serious problem with aging and undersized sewer systems, but there are solutions to reduce or resolve the problems. The addition of a new sanitary sewer along Algonquin Rd. in 2014 (as reported in The Journal on January 13, 2013), is a direct result of the monitoring and should provide a fair amount of relief to our ward.

I would recommend that anyone in our ward that is concerned about flooding view the videos of the candidates and draw their own conclusions.

2013 Des Plaines Mayoral Debate