Heralding a major enhancement for Chicago’s lakefront, the way was cleared Monday for a plan to rapidly speed up work to rebuild deteriorating erosion controls and protect the city’s shoreline from the ravages of Lake Michigan.
The repairs are expected to make it easier for millions of parkgoers to enjoy the lakefront, be they joggers or sunbathers.
A projected $272 million in reconstruction of revetments, floodwalls and breakwaters along the lakefront would be completed by 2005 instead of stretching on until 2010, under an agreement between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the City of Chicago that was approved Monday. The price tag is to be split between the federal and city governments.
As with nearly all federal projects, continued funding from Washington remains dependent on appropriations approved annually. But approval of the agreement “is a commitment to put this project on a much faster track,” said Mike Cys, spokesman for Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.).
With much of the shoreline protection system more than 70 years old and swiftly deteriorating, both the work and the accelerated pace are of major significance to Chicago. The work will safeguard one of the city’s major traffic arteries, Lake Shore Drive, and restore revetments that permit recreation.
The revetments, steplike barriers that simultaneously protect against erosion and allow easy access to the shoreline, are now splintered or upended in many places, particularly on the South Side. And the city is relying on temporary concrete barriers to prevent flooding along stretches of Lake Shore Drive.
The city last year reached a cost-sharing agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers to complete the work by 2005, but the agreement had to receive a series of clearances.
Federal budget rules required the commitment to be approved by the Clinton administration and the chairs of the Senate and House subcommittees with jurisdiction over funding. The final necessary approval came Monday from Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Energy and Water.
Patrick Souders, project director for Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also has lobbied for approval, said the faster work “will save the taxpayers money. It can’t keep taking the beating. It’s going to fail.”
In a letter of approval, Domenici attached several conditions to the agreement, mostly designed to assure that the city meets federal bidding standards in work it does and that no federal funding is committed beyond the levels set in the agreement. The agreement calls for $144 million in federal funding and $128 million in city funding.
The work will cover 8 miles of shoreline between Ardmore Avenue on the North Side and 79th Street on the South Side.
City of Chicago lobbyist David Yudin, who works in Washington, said Mayor Richard Daley still must agree to abide by Domenici’s conditions in order to begin work. The mayor had not yet received the letter Monday evening.
“Our folks have done well. I think we’re there, if my folks in Chicago are OK with this,” Yudin said. “My folks in Chicago have not had a chance to look at this. But it seems to me we have taken some major steps, if not the major step.”
