Flooding Worries? Niles' Consultant Will Present Flood Prevention Report

Niles' quest to find out why some homes and neighborhoods flood repeatedly began in 2008, after a so-called 100-year-storm left many homes saturated. Since then, much more flooding has occurred, including

Tonight marks a milestone in that flood prevention quest. A consulting firm, Hey and Associates, will present to the village board what it's learned from about 16 months of studying Niles' sewer system. It will also look at potential solutions.

"We did a system diagnosis. We looked at the causes of flooding, and where the limitations of the system are," said Jeff Wickenkamp, vice president of Hey and Associates.

Earlier:

Bad storm leads to Stormwater Commission

The 2008 storm caused flooding throughout much of northern Illinois, Wickenkamp recalled, and many Niles homeowners had extensive flooding damage. That led the village to form the Stormwater Commission, which investigated some of the worst-hit areas. In late 2009, the village made a recommendation to study its most flood-prone spots.

Hey praised village staff for doing an impressive job on that effort by themselves.

"They did a fabulous job in terms of setting the stage for bringing in a consultant," he said. "They gave us information to work with."

Mapping the sewer system

Hey and Associates started its work here in June 2010, developing the Niles Stormwater Master Plan. Working from hand-drawn plans of the sewer system from decades ago, it devised a computer map of the system.

Although that map showed where sewers were located, it didn't provide any information about land elevations or sewer depths. The consultant spent the second half of 2010 opening manholes and measuring how deep the sewers went.

The consultants worked with members of the Stormwater Commission, including its chair, trustee Joe LoVerde, and staff members, including Scott Jochim, who heads the Public Services Department, Rich Wlodarski of the Community Development Department and Assistant Village Manager Steve Vinezeano.

Ongoing discussions and the information gained from mapping and measuring the sewer system enabled Hey to look at how the system functioned as a whole, Wickenkamp said--and what its limitations were.

Solutions range from minor to expensive

The next step was to recommend solutions for fixing it.

"We had to look at the costs (of the various solutions), and which ones the village will want to start with first," Wickenkamp said. "We want to put information into their hands so they can move forward."

Some of the measures needed to fix the problem will be large capital expenditures over five years or more.

Other proposals might include cost-sharing programs with homeowners, who then could get help with the expense of flood prevention and get some flooding relief right away.

"We're trying to create a program that addresses large issues that have gone unaddressed for 30 years," Wickenkamp said.

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