Public Watchdog.org

Does Burke Sewer Study Finally Portend Flood Relief?

07.26.11

Last Monday (July 18) the City got its first glimpse of the long-awaited “Citywide Sewer Study” by Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd.  We trust that should be the next big step toward coming up with ways to attack the flooding problems that have long bedeviled this community, reducing property values and the quality of life. 

To its credit, the City’s Flood Control Task Force wasted no time in scheduling a meeting two nights later to begin digging into the study’s details.  Those folks – chair Gail Fabisch and members Joe Saccomanno, Bob Mack, Lou Arrigoni, Kim Jones, Daniel Carroll, John Humm, Patricia Lofthouse and Steve Tolan – have their work cut out for them.  We wish them the genius of Einstein, the persistence of Edison, and the wisdom of Solomon. 

That’s because, frankly, whatever solution(s) they come up with cannot be expected to completely “solve” all our flooding problems: when you can get 6.86 inches of rain in one day, with 6.85 of it coming in less than 6 hours, nothing short of our own “Deep Tunnel” can be expected to hold all that water.  But we don’t see the City’s taxpayers ponying up the $1-2-3 hundred million our own DT would cost – nor should they, given how such an expense would put the City’s finances in a straitjacket for decades.

Nevertheless, multi-millions of dollars will be needed to make any kind of significant dent in the flooding problems that jeopardize basements in significant portions of Park Ridge after those 100-year rains we seem to be getting every 2-3 years.  If we leave these problems completely untreated, property values already battered by the recession will not come back with the vigor this community’s tax base needs, and its residents deserve.

Unless, of course, anybody thinks that piles of soggy carpeting and furniture piled on the parkways semi-regularly increases the EAV or is a sophisticated marketing ploy.  

If we read it correctly, the Burke “Summary Report” projects the “hard” remediation costs at between $11.65 million and $17.38 million for 11 targeted areas, not including engineering costs and the additional millions of dollars of debt service costs if these projects are funded with municipal bonds, as will likely be necessary. Notably, those figures also don’t include the costs for addressing such extreme and chronic flooding areas as Mayfield Estates, which were identified in Burke’s 2008 flooding assessment and the Task Force’s April 2010 Report, which we understand the Task Force will incorporate in its analysis and upcoming recommendations.

Whether that’s an expense the people of this community are willing to undertake remains to be seen.  But at least for the time being – and for the first time in memory – the City now has some legitimate, tangible alternatives that can be investigated, debated, and hopefully put to the voters in the form of one or more “advisory”/non-binding referenda on the March 20, 2012, primary ballot.  And assuming that the necessary preliminary “spade work” has been done prior to that election, should the voters approve the referendum(s) we would hope that one or more of these sewer projects could be “shovel ready” in time for the summer 2012 construction season. 

Mayor Dave Schmidt (who created the Task Force shortly after taking office in 2009), the City Council and the Task Force itself already seem to be headed in that direction, having set some fairly aggressive target dates for moving this process forward.  The Task Force and City Staff are working towards announcing their prioritization recommendations of the various remediation projects identified in the Burke report by September 7; and the City Council is likely to take up those prioritization recommendations at its September 12 meeting. 

Meanwhile, we think it’s time the City Council began seriously discussing the wisdom of further residential development (especially multi-family residential) that, for the past decade-plus, has consisted primarily of building the biggest structure a lot will hold, then covering up much of the remaining green space with oversized patios and driveways that minimize the lot’s water-absorbent surface area while often diverting run-off onto neighboring property – the kind of thing Vine Avenue residents Cliff Kowalski and Jeff Getz have been complaining about to no avail.

Unless Park Ridge aspires to becoming a real-life “Waterworld” (avec ou sans Kevin Costner), we need to start solving the current flooding problems sooner rather than later.

But we also need to stop adding to them.

To read or post comments, click on title.

4 comments so far

If you live in a neighboorhood or on a street that has piles of carpet at the end of driveways and yet are not even referenced or touched on in any way by the Burke study, please raise your hand. I see a whole bunch of hands!!!!!

I have no problem with the city spending the money being discussed but they had better be able to explain why the other areas are “more deserving”. I invested in a flood control system and have been dry ever since but there are folks in my neighborhood (4th ward near the park) that have flooded 4-5 times in the last 8 years.

PD is right about proprety values. This is serious business so call and e-mail your aldermen and demand answers!!!

EDITOR’S NOTE: The original Burke flooding report was presented to the Task Force on October 28, 2009, which we publicized in our August 3, 2009 post “The Latest From The Flood Control Task Force,” in our October 29, 2009 post “Synergistic Flood Control,” and in an article of that same date in the Herald-Advocate titled “Park water storage could curb flooding: engineer.”

If residents have concerns about the exclusion of their areas from the primary focus areas of sewer/flooding remediation already identified, then they had better contact the members of the Flood Control Task Force and make those concerns known. NOW! Because the City has neither enough money nor reasonable borrowing power to implement flood control throughout the entire City, so anybody that snoozes will likely lose – and that’s the way it should be.

PW said: so anybody that snoozes will likely lose – and that’s the way it should be.

Remind me not to live in your world.

How does that viewpoint support a goal of having all citizens served for the tax dollars they put in?

EDITOR’S NOTE: You should be so lucky!

In the hostile and corrupt “real” world of Illinois government all these decisions already would have been made in back rooms, with the contracts and related deals already parceled out to the people “who know people” (a/k/a the “friends of friends”) for the benefit of the people “who know people.”

At least in “our world” you get years’ worth of notice, a Flood Control Task Force of people from our community to whom you can make your case, and (presumably) an advisory referendum.

All citizens are “served” by their tax dollars providing equal access to what appears to be an honest and transparent process.
But we’re guessing you’re one of those people who thinks “equal opportunity” requires equal outcome.

This is far from scientific but it seems to me that there are far more people who flooded this week and are not covered by the Burke Plan than those who are covered. They are going to have to do some serious selling for it to pass a referendum. I already spent money beyond my taxes to “flood proof” my house and my neighborhood is not included in the 13-16 million so those w/o flood control will still flood. There is no benefit to my property value there. Why on earth would I vote yes?? Of course the referendum is non binding, right??

EDITOR’S NOTE: This also is far from scientific, but you sound like a true “Ubi est mea?” (“Where’s mine?”) adherent. Are you Howard Frimark, or do you just play him on the Internet?

I’d like to know what these several residents had done (and at what price) to have their homes “floodproofed.”
Since the city doesn’t have and never will have at least a year’s worth — and probably, as you note, two year’s worth — of total budget to put just to flood control solutions, it migth be worthwhile to find out what current individual solutions are out there. It sucks, but no way is there $50 to $100 million available on top of the $50+ million per annum it takes to run this City even halfbaked.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The standard in-home remedies are overhead sewers and check/shut-off valves re sewage backup. Seepage through foundation cracks, window wells, etc. are a different issue altogether.



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