Arlington Heights officials have proposed to Chicago a way to reduce aircraft noise at the south end of town: Just reroute northwest-bound flights out of O’Hare International Airport farther to the south.
But the problem with that scheme, as far as Charles Zettek is concerned, is that it would put planes right over Elk Grove Village, where Zettek is village president.
As Arlington Heights sees it, the new route would take planes over the Northwest Tollway and the Cook County Forest Preserve, where noise would be somewhat less of a problem.
But planes “cannot get to the tollway and the Cook County Forest Preserve without flying over Elk Grove Village,” observed Zettek, who also is vice chairman of the Suburban O’Hare Commission, a coalition of suburbs fighting Chicago over aircraft noise.
“Anything that would exacerbate noise and air pollution for residents of Elk Grove Village we would be ultimately be opposed to,” Zettek added.
Another idea from Arlington Heights, however, dovetails with the O’Hare Commission agenda: Ban older, noisier aircraft from flying at night.
The recommendations resulted from a noise study of the last six months of 1992 for the Arlington Heights Advisory Committee on O’Hare Noise. The study was given to Robert Repel, deputy commissioner for governmental affairs at the Chicago Department of Aviation, at a meeting last week of Chicago and Arlington Heights officials.
The study found that planes flying along southerly paths dumped significantly less noise on Arlington Heights residents than planes flying over houses. However, the latter planes should not have gone so far north anyway, under existing noise-abatement procedures.
Arlene Mulder, noise committee chairwoman and Arlington Heights trustee, told the Chicago contingent, “What we feel we’re trying to do is say, `Your system isn’t working.’ “
Repel explained that to ensure safety, airlines occasionally are allowed to deviate from the regulations when air traffic is heavy or weather is bad.
Earth-shaking development
Back at ground level, a Roselle homeowner has come up with a down-to-earth explanation for the mysterious cracks that have appeared in her walls and foundation in recent months: It’s the Elgin-O’Hare Expressway.
Specifically, she said, it was the work that somehow produced soil movement while a contractor for the Illinois Department of Transportation was building an overpass at Plum Grove Road and the Elgin-O’Hare, a few hundred feet from the townhouse of Anthony and Teresa Baldino.
“We just want someone to take responsibility so we can get our homes back to their original condition and we can get on with our lives,” said Teresa Baldino of 720 Circle Drive in the Ventura 21 subdivision.
Baldino said the cracks in her 20-year-old residence started as a couple of hairline fractures in the spring of 1992. Now, she said, they’re crevices a quarter-inch to a half-inch wide in every room of her home, as well as in the foundation. Some neighbors’ homes also suffer from the cracks, she asserted.
State highway officials and their contractor aren’t about to admit liability.
They said the really heavy work-pile-driving, excavation and the like-near the Ventura 21 subdivision started in 1991 and was finished by May 1992. They question why the cracks were just now being reported.
Indeed, an insurance investigation has cleared the contractor, T.J. Lambrect Construction Inc., Joliet, according to a spokesman for the company.
“We feel confident we were not involved, and our insurer will have a formal response to that effect to the Baldinos and to the state highway department (Thursday),” said Dan Klingberg, a Lambrect vice president.
Lambrect finished working in the Plum Grove Road area “at least two months prior to any evidence of a problem, and depending on what information you go by, it could be as much as six months,” Klingberg said.
Baldino insisted that it was not just the bridge work that may have caused her problem but construction in general “that dug up a lot of soil, moved a spring and drained a swampy area. When you release that much water pressure, the soil will shift.”
Tom Sepka, president of the Ventura 21 Homeowners Association, said that Baldino and at least one other resident have gone as far as hiring structural engineers to check out their homes. He said that all residents will be alerted to watch for and report unusual cracks.
“We will try to coordinate something and get some resolution to what’s going on,” Sepka said. “We definitely don’t want properties to deterioriate or to have people unable to sell their homes because of structural damage.”
The Elgin-O’Hare Expressway will run from Rohlwing Road in Itasca to Lake Street (U.S. Highway 20) in Hanover Park. It is scheduled to open Sept. 30.
