A cost-sharing agreement between Kane County and Batavia to alleviate flooding at a home on the outskirts of Batavia has been approved by the county’s Development Committee and the city’s Public Service Committee.
The home of Judy and Tom Rychter on Chillem Drive, near Hart Road in unincorporated Batavia, sits alongside a drainage ditch that has overflowed and flooded the lowest level of their house more than seven times in two years. During the autumn’s heavy rains, the Rychters used extra sump pumps and round-the-clock bailing and monitoring to prevent further flooding.
The drainage ditch flows toward the Rychters’ house from a culvert on the west side of Hart Road that receives runoff from, among other places, the detention pond of the Wild Meadows subdivision. The 2-year-old subdivision is within Batavia’s city limits.
Phil Bus, executive director of the Kane County Department of Development, said the county has agreed to enter the cost-sharing agreement for drainage improvements. Both governmental bodies approved splitting the estimated $4,000 cost of the first phase of the project, which will involve cleaning and regrading 200 feet of drainage ditch between a 36-inch diameter culvert and the road ditch along Chillem.
The cost-sharing agreement applies to the first phase. Bus said details of the second phase have not been completed.
Batavia Engineer Ted Bergeson said, “What we both do agree on is that the initial fix is to deepen and improve the drainage ditch on the south side of the house.” He said the agreement calls for the county to be responsible for designing and creating the improved ditch.
The county had sent a draft engineering report to the city, Bergeson said, which has been returned to the county with revisions. The county is writing the final engineering report.
County Board member James Mitchell (R-Aurora), whose district includes the Rychter home, said the family will have to agree to the project because work will be done on private property.
“My gosh, if it works we’ll be happy, but I don’t know,” said Judy Rychter, when she learned of the votes by the two governmental bodies. The Rychters have not yet seen the engineering report.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” she added, “as long as whatever they do is safe. I think we’ll just hope for the best at this point.” She said she needs to be reassured that there will be some sort of safety measure included because a deeper ditch might prove too inviting and hazardous to neighborhood children.
The Batavia City Council is scheduled to consider the agreement Monday. Work will start, Bus said, “as soon as possible.”
