Kurt Woolford knows that flooding in Lake County is an issue that will not go away on its own.
“All numbers are pointing up,” he said. “We’re not going to be experiencing less flooding, we’re going to be experiencing more flooding.”
In fact, as the Illinois State Water Commission reports, annual precipitation has increased by about five inches from 120 years ago. Lake County is no exception, particularly in the summer months, where counties in northern and central Illinois have seen precipitation increases from June to August.
But a recent $30 million grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity — made possible by funds allocated from the federal government’s COVID-19 response — should give the county a leg up before the problem worsens.
To Woolford, the executive director for the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission, the grant is a game-changer that will spur projects at some of the county’s most floodprone sites.
“What we can do is make sure this increased flooding is not going to cause increased damages,” Woolford said. “These projects will be able to handle the future flooding increases without adding onto additional damages.”
The county will work in conjunction on 14 initial projects with municipal governments in Antioch, Grayslake, Waukegan, Libertyville, Park City, Highland Park, Lake Forest and Fox Lake. Additionally, the Libertyville, Warren and Shields townships each have a project in their jurisdiction.
Many of the projects are starting the contract bidding process, with some expected to break ground this summer or fall. The remainder will go into construction early next year, Woolford said.
Construction projects that require intragovernmental cooperation can be more complicated, but that doesn’t change the nature of, well, nature.
Lake County features four major watersheds — the Des Plaines River, the Chicago River’s North Branch, the Fox River and Lake Michigan — and is the only county in Illinois with more total water area than land area. With 170 lakes and rivers, 400 miles of streams and thousands of acres of wetlands, most of the population lives in close proximity to water sources that can cause flooding in the event of heavy rainfall.
“Floodwaters do not respect political boundaries or other jurisdictions,” Woolford said. “The rivers and streams are going to drain where they’ve always drained.”
In 2017, former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner issued a disaster declaration in Lake County as flooding severely damaged 244 homes and caused less severe damage to thousands of others in the county.
The next two years brought more flooding around the county, and prompted a renewed focus on prevention and damage mitigation.
“There’s a lot of erosion, sedimentation from our drainage systems that needs to be stabilized,” Woolford said. “The erosion, what happens is that sediment loss destroys properties, but it also obstructs drainage ways and causes more flooding.”
The Burr Oak Stormwater Detention and Storm Sewer project is slated to be the first to get underway in Lake Forest.
The project will include a new, larger storm sewer and an underground storm trap with “enough volume to hold the stormwater instead of allowing it to flood the streets, the businesses and the residential areas,” Woolford said.
Park City Mayor Steve Pannell noted that he didn’t ever expect Park City to receive the funding needed to alleviate flooding dangers with Dady Slough, which borders Park City, and along Teske Boulevard, the only way residents can get in and out of the Park City Mobile Home Park.
“I’ve been trying to get something done there for 21 years, and it’s finally coming to fruition,” Pannell said. “Before, every time it did rain, even if it was like an afternoon shower, Teske would flood. What they’re doing is going to alleviate that. It will never flood again. I think it’s the greatest thing since store-bought bread.”
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Lake County Board Chair Sandy Hart and other area Democrats held an announcement for the grant at nearby Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep, which sits on the other side of Dady Slough from Park City. The projects will renovate Dady Slough’s flood plain storage system and Park City’s flood mitigation storm sewer, which stretches from Route 120 to the Green Belt Forest Preserve.
“I think (Dady Slough) was at one time supposed to be (for water) retention,” Pannell said, “but it overgrew with cattails, trees falling in it, branches and other stuff. It’s not only ugly, it’s not doing anything. They’re going to clean it up, scrape it, put in box culverts (for water flow) all the way down Knight Avenue into the forest preserve. We’ll never have to worry about it again, hopefully.”
Libertyville, which experienced heavy flooding in July of 2017, has several sites impacted by the grant. The village will receive $7.6 million for three projects.
“That was a catastrophic flooding time in the city,” Libertyville Mayor Donna Johnson said. “It was a hundred-year storm, so it was excessive.”
Libertyville adopted a stormwater master plan in 2019, before state funding was on the horizon, and Johnson said the money will improve the potential situation for the Highlands subdivision between Route 176 and Golf Road. Libertyville also passed a stormwater utility tax to help raise the money to fulfill its plan, which saw its price tag rise from an estimated $45 million to $53 million when engineering consultants updated an earlier study.
” (The grant) is a huge windfall for us,” Johnson said. “If you recognize the governor gave $30 million to Lake County and we received $7.6 million, that’s a huge piece of the pie, so we’re very happy.”
A 40.5-acre-foot flood basin at Nicholas Dowden Park is slated for construction, and sewer capacity upgrades are on the way as part of a two-part Seavey Master Plan that will use about $4.89 million from the grant. The Rockland Road area storm sewer will also enter the final phase of improvements this summer, with approximately $2.75 million in grant funding allocated for the project.
On Oak Spring Lane in unincorporated Libertyville, a roughly $1 million storm sewer bypass is planned to mitigate floodwaters in several nearby subdivisions.
Woolford said Lake County won’t be the only place to benefit.
“This is for regional benefit, not just one area,” Woolford said. “And the projects we do in Lake County do benefit our downstream communities, including communities in Cook County and further down the rivers.”
