A neighborhood’s push to get the Glenbard Wastewater Authority to create a new truck route to its treatment plant has some Lombard residents gearing up for a fight.
Since the early 1950s, the authority’s trucks have been using Bemis Road, near Illinois Highway 53, to get to the nearby plant, according to Glen Ellyn Public Works Director Don Foster, who is a member of the authority’s Executive Oversight Committee. At that time, about a half-dozen homes were located off of the road in unincorporated Glen Ellyn. Now, the road is lined with homes.
The plant in the 1980s was expanded to service the growing needs of Glen Ellyn and Lombard and nearby unincorporated areas.
Some residents living near Bemis Road have approached the authority with a request to consider an alternate route for its trucks.
The authority earlier conducted a study that resulted in several proposed alternative routes. One of those routes is being supported by some Bemis Road residents, who say the truck traffic on the road is interfering with their neighborhood.
“We absolutely cannot let children on the front yard. It’s just too dangerous. When the trucks hit bumps, there’s sludge that can fall on the road,” said Kerry Murphy, a Bemis Road resident. “These semis are constantly on our streets.”
Officials with the authority estimate that an average of 4 1/2 trucks make nine trips a day to and from the plant via Bemis Road, transporting bio-solids, sludge and chemicals used at the plant.
But Murphy argues the estimate does not include additional vehicles used by the plant that also use the road. Residents have been pushing for a proposal that calls for construction of an access road to the east of the plant that would extend from Oak Creek Drive and Finley Road past Interstate Highway 355 to the southeast corner of the plant near Bemis and Sunnybrook Roads.
The proposed road would extend through Illinois State Tollway property, Butterfield Park District property, Commonwealth Edison property and a portion of Lombard property near an apartment complex.
Murphy said she has circulated a petition signed by area residents in support of the proposal.
The proposed route would avoid the Bemis Road neighborhood. But some Lombard residents say the alternative is unfair.
“It’s just like moving next to an airport and then starting to complain about airport noise,” said Jerome Sherwin of Lombard.
Sherwin, who lives on the southwest side of Lombard and not near the proposed access road, said he opposes the alternative because of the environmental aspects associated with it. The road would need to be constructed through natural wetlands and a flood plain, according to Lombard Community Development Director David Hulseberg.
“It would be upsetting the balance of nature there,” Sherwin said.
Also, Sherwin said he objects to the costs involved with the proposed project, which is estimated by a consultant hired by the authority to be up to $1.25 million.
“To me, it’s just a waste of money,” said Sherwin, who noted that he, too, has launched a petition drive in opposition to any alternative access routes.
A study conducted by Aurora-based Deuchler & Associates has concluded that the most feasible alternative would be to make roadway improvements along the existing Bemis Road route, including the widening of the road and construction of sidewalks, curbs and gutters as a means of improving traffic safety along the access route.
But Murphy said widening the road would only worsen the conditions in her neighborhood.
“This street cannot be 60 feet from the front door of people’s homes with semis and chemicals and raw sewage; it doesn’t make sense,” Murphy said.
