Residents of two subdivisions in northwestern Elmhurst are demanding that they get the same flood protection afforded the southern and central parts of town.
The city has just completed a levee-reservoir project along Salt Creek designed to protect those areas but not the South and North Graue Woods subdivisions, which straddle North Avenue east of Illinois Highway 83.
In fact, money for a flood-mitigation study in the unprotected sections was cut from this year`s budget because of the city`s financial crisis.
Bernard Spirgel, whose North Graue Woods home repeatedly has flooded, said, ”Many of us made very large investments in our property with the understanding that we`d be second in line” after the $9 million levee-reservoir project was completed.
”We`re asking for equitable treatment and expeditious treatment,”
Spirgel told a City Council committee Monday night.
It would cost $100,000 for design and planning work on the Graue Woods flood projects, with construction bringing the total to more than $1 million, said Thomas P. Borchert, city manager.
Money is tight for such activities, and the county already is planning to spend almost $100 million along the creek to reduce flood damage. Anthony J. Charlton, the county engineer overseeing Salt Creek projects, said the master plan would eventually leave only 1 of 10 severely flood-prone homes in North Graue Woods in jeopardy, and that home could be purchased and razed.
In South Graue Woods, all 50 homes that flood would be protected by the county`s four-basin project, although two would still get about 8 inches of water in something as severe as the 1987 storm, Charlton said.
But residents of the two subdivisions said there is no guarantee that the county will complete the projected work, or if it does, that it would be in time to offset the next big storm.
Spirgel said that many homes nearby that don`t flood are rendered unreachable in heavy storms because of road and ground flooding.
Elmhurst built its levee-reservoir project because county officials couldn`t agree for more than four years after the 1987 floods on what to do about the problem. Now it hopes to piggyback on the county`s project to turn the stone quarry in Elmhurst into a huge storm water reservoir.
The city would like to run storm water lines to the quarry from the Graue Woods sections at far less cost than for the six pumping stations it originally planned to reconstruct to reduce flooding.
The county is considering the request.
The Public Works Committee appeared Monday to support spending $100,000 in design planning for flood control in the two subdivisons.
