Elmwood Park breaks ground for Flood Mitigation Project

| May 5, 2013
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ELMWOOD PARK – The village’s major flood mitigation project is now underway, after officials and community leaders gathered Monday to break ground. The start of the program, designed to bring welcome relief to property owners throughout Elmwood Park, follows months of planning and engineering studies as well as input from the public.
“This is an important day in the history of Elmwood Park,” Village President Pete Silvestri said. “For too long, our property owners have had to worry about the next big storm. This project will go a long way toward relieving those concerns.”
Initial work involves the construction of approximately 7,000 feet of storm sewer, ten concrete junction chambers, catch basins and manholes as well as the replacement of roughly 3,600 feet of 8 inch water main along 80th Avenue from Fletcher to Westwood.
Currently, the village is serviced by combined sewers which convey both domestic sewage and storm water runoff to a treatment facility. The flood mitigation project will separate storm water from domestic sewage, helping to alleviate flooding for homes in the immediate area while also benefiting the entire village by increasing overall storm water capacity.
A significant amount of construction during this first phase of the project will occur in the northern part of Elmwood Park, including the Westwood Subdivision. Approximately 250 acres of the village will directly benefit from the separation of the storm and domestic sewers. The village also plans to replace most of the water mains that are uncovered during the installation of the new storm sewers.
The village is also moving forward with installing new and separate storm sewers from areas on the south end of town including the area around 76th Avenue and Palmer Avenue. The storm water will flow through new sewers in the alley located south of Armitage Avenue. All of the storm water will flow to a detention area being constructed in the Oak Park Country Club (OPCC.)  A new pump station being constructed this year at the southeast corner of the OPCC will eventually discharge the storm water collected into the Des Plaines River.
The Village Board voted Monday to approve an agreement with the OPCC, allowing the construction of the detention basin, the pump station and the necessary sewer pipes running throughout a significant portion of the Club’s property.
“I would like to thank the OPCC Board, staff and membership for their full cooperation on this issue,” Silvestri said. “They were incredibly helpful, allowing us to move forward on this very important project.”
“While this is the most significant project we have undertaken to address our flooding problems, it is not the first,” Silvestri explained. “Over the past several years, we’ve installed five underground vaults, which hold about 250,000 gallons of storm water. We’ve also created several new neighborhood parks and constructed four “Green Alleys” to reduce the volume of storm water runoff.”
More information on the Flood Mitigation Plan can be found on the village’s website www.elmwoodpark.org.

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