Niles Is Rushing to Speed Up Flood Relief Project

Written by Pam DeFiglio

Niles Mayor Andrew Przybylo announced Saturday the village is putting its flood relief project into overdrive, and will construct flood relief projects in two years rather than four.

Both the engineering phase and construction phase will be accelerated, and construction will begin in spring 2014, Przybylo said.

The plan is currently in the engineering stages, but village officials recognize that two severe storms so far this year--one on April 18 and one Wednesday, June 26--have flooded hundreds of basements and caused misery for many homeowners.

On Wednesday, about 600 homes may have flooded

After fielding many phone calls from residents either angry or in tears Wednesday, Village Manager Steve Vinezeano estimated 550 to 650 homes in the village flooded.

However, Przybylo said the cost will not change. The village last June approved $15.2 million for the Tier One phase of stormwater relief, and is still working with that budget. At some future point, the board will consider funding Tier Two. 

Putting work on faster pace

Jeff Wickenkamp, a stormwater engineer with Hey and Associates, a consulting firm which the village of Niles has hired to do preliminary engineering on the Tier One projects, said more people would be assigned to the engineering work to complete it sooner.

They would also speed the construction schedule, by working on all three projects concurrently. That will require careful planning so as not to wall in residents between construction zones.

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The original idea, to spread the project out over four years, would have allowed one construction project to be built at a time. Because two of the projects are close to each other, that would have reduced the inconvenience to residents of having streets closed and detours established.  

With the new schedule, construction along two east-west streets--Main Street and Cleveland Street--could happen at the same time. Since the two streets run parallel to each other and are only about two blocks apart, engineers will have to carefully devise ways for residents to drive out of their driveways and onto the main roads.

"There are north-south projects that will have construction on each end of the block," Wickenkamp said.

The three construction projects included in Tier One are:

• The Cleveland Street relief sewer
• The Main Street relief sewer and (water) storage
• The West Side Storage Basins--a detention basin to be built on property owned by Our Lady of Ransom Church at Normal and Delphia.

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