Village: Debris Cleanup Will Prevent Flooding, Bridge Damage

After the wettest July in more than 100 years, the village has taken action to prevent flooding along 135^th Street — not to mention costly bridge repairs — by shelling out $100,000 to clear debris from the Des Plaines River near the 135^th Street bridge.

Trustees authorized payment not to exceed that amount to Christopher Burke Engineering, the firm hired to clean up the river to avoid potential harm to the bridge and flooding during inclement weather.

A buildup of debris near the bridge had created a dam, contributing to flooding problems along 135^th Street near the river, according to Village Manager Steve Gulden.

While the river is under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers, efforts to secure project funding from the federal government, unsurprisingly, proved fruitless.

“They’re not too inclined to pay for anything these days,” Mayor John Noak told trustees Wednesday.

But the village moved forward with the cleanup, fearing that a lack of action could cost millions more down the road.

“It hurts me that we’ve got to spend $100,000 and we didn’t budget for it,” Noak said. “[But] it’s better than [spending] several tens of millions of dollars to fix the bridge.”

“With the rain and flooding this year, we had to do an emergency cleanup,” Gulden said. The work was completed about a month ago, according to Gulden.

Despite several consecutive days of storms last week, the roadway never had to close due to flooding.

“It did help tremendously with the rains we’ve had in recent weeks,” Gulden noted. “It has drastically improved the flow of the river.

“We felt it was important enough to do it now.”