I recently sat down with our city engineer, Mike Furlan, and discussed a pressing issue to our Oak Ridge Drive residents as well as some who live on the “shortcut” to Utica. The problem stems from the inordinate amount of rain we have received over actually the past two years. This along with additional building and no adequate system in place to evacuate the rain water as it falls and we are creating the ”land of a thousand lakes” on our east end.
Prior to the last election then Mayor Art Washkowiak, Pam Broviak, Sam McNeilly and myself met with several of the land owners to experience the site first hand.
Although it was a sunny Saturday morning, water as you see in the pictures attached, was draining west down Oak Ridge Drive. It was decided to have a company come out to set up monitoring wells to determine the source of the ground water and also to test the soil.
The company’s name is McCleary Engineering out of Tonica, Illinois. The estimated cost is in the neighborhood of twelve thousand dollars. We hope to determine some options as to what , if anything, can be done and at what cost. Engineer Furlan feels its really not a city problem but one for the homeowner to deal with. By that he means that this drainage will have to be rectified on private property by use of field tiles and perforated pipe underground to direct the water in a way that will keep it from coming back through the sump pumps which for now seem to be running 24 hours a day!
For now we will wait for the results of the test before further action is taken.
In the meantime pray for a dry Summer!
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