Black Road Will Stay Closed Due To Tri County Stockdale Fire

SHOREWOOD, IL —The city of Joliet announced that Black Road, between River Road and County Line Road, will be closed for approximately the next two weeks for mitigation and recovery efforts stemming from last week's giant fire that destroyed the Tri County Stockdale business.

Although this portion of Black Road is not within Joliet corporate limits, many of our City residents utilize this roadway for daily travel, Joliet's news release stated.

On Monday night, Shorewood Village Manager Aaron Klima issued a follow-up news release that stated in part:

"The operations pertaining to the contamination after the Tri County Stockdale fire on July 19

continue. We are pleased to report that our containment operations were successful. Our regional and state partners were impressed with the quick and effective response to mitigate the impact in our village and prevent an expansion of the contamination.

"We apologize for the inconvenience of closed roadways in some locations but our pumping operations have removed over 640,000 gallons of contaminated fluid from within the Village alone. The large volume of rain over the weekend further diluted the water in our storm sewer system and detention ponds.

"Because of the danger of flooding residential homes along the detention ponds, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency authorized a gradual release of the diluted detention ponds in order to prevent private property damage along the ponds. The IL EPA credits the work over the past several days a contributing factor in releasing the diluted water downstream to join with other rain swollen tributaries to further dilute any remaining contamination.

"We know concerns remain and we have received repeated requests for additional information. Most notably, the request for detailed test results continue. Samples have been taken at intervals throughout the week. Testing takes an annoyingly long time. Rest assured, the Mayor and Board are committed to disclosure of test results as they come into us. The test results will not only be informative, but they will help our response team make subsequent plans for the rest of the response and return us to normal as soon as possible.

"The US Environmental Protection Agency is still in our area conducting air quality testing. Those test results continue to indicate the air is safe. The US EPA website for the Shorewood Pesticides Fire can be found at https://response.epa.gov/site/... The well source and distribution network of our Shorewood municipal water system was not compromised. We continue to work on containing contaminated areas and extract as much foreign material as possible. We ask for continued patience as we pump into storage tanks placed onto roadways until they can be cleared and the streets can be reopened."