A city map shows the five basin areas being looked at. (City of Elgin)By Ted Schnell • BocaJump
The Elgin City Council on Wednesday approved a $30,247 amendment to an engineering services agreement to expand its investigation of the cause of increased flooding in the neighborhood surrounding North Commonwealth and Demmond avenues.
Assistant City Manager Rick Kozal said Monday that residents in that area last summer complained that street and basement flooding had been occurring with increasing regularity over several years during significant rainfalls.
In response, the city in November entered into a $178,996 contract with Engineering Enterprises Inc. to study the sanitary and storm basins in that neighborhood. Kozal said the consultant divided the area into five different basins in an attempt to focus in on what was causing the increased flooding.
The initial study focused on two of the five basins — south of Wing Street, east of Wing Park Boulevard, north of Lawrence and west of Crystal, where the flooding had occurred. A staff memo on the matter to the City Council states the testing included televising, smoke testing, dye water testing, flow metering and modeling of the systems.
“The study of the initial two basins indicates there may be problems in this one,” Kozal said of the basin to be studied under the contract amendment.
“Part of the belief is that many of these homes that were built have their downspouts connected to the stormwater (sewers), so when you get that kind of flooding … it can create those kinds of backups” into basements, Kozal said.
But that’s clearly not all of the problem, he said, noting that Engineering Enterprises Inc. had identified some catch basins that had collapsed that contributed to storm sewer backups. The firm will look at the next basin to determine if there are similar additional sources contributing to the overall flooding problem in that area, Kozal said.
The new testing area under the agreement will include the affected area directly north of Wing Street and east of Wing Park, and Engineering Enterprises Inc. will report back with its findings to the City Council, staff and the neighborhood groups.
Additionally, at the end of the engineering study, Engineering Enterprises Inc. will include detailed recommendations and solutions for correcting the problems that are discovered.
The $30,247 amendment to Engineering Enterprises Inc.’s contract pushes the overall contract amount to $209,243. The staff memo to the council states there are funds available in the city’s “Riverboat Lease Fund as a result of project savings to finance the expanded scope of work.”
