Constable: Dam on Fox River can't stop flooding, but it helps
From his perch in the cozy control building at the Stratton Lock & Dam along the Fox River in McHenry, lockmaster John W. Palmieri could see trouble brewing as pounding rain fed the floodwaters.
“It looks like more water than I've ever seen before,” Palmieri remembers thinking. “And what am I going to do with it?”
The decision to open the dam's five steel sluice gates near the river's surface and adjust the large, hinged crest gate on the Fox River bottom to let the maximum amount of water flow through the dam was made before the July 12 flood.
“I did it as the rain was falling,” Palmieri says, adding that opening the gates all the way only happens when the area is flooding. “We're running free weir (gates wide open) for the first time since 2013.”
Palmieri, 56, who goes by the nickname JP, lives in Fox Lake, has been lockmaster at the dam since 2005 and was deputy director of the Fox Waterway Agency before that. But those gate adjustments are made according to the book.
“There are many restrictions on the Fox River and Chain O' Lakes that basically say how much water we can or can't move,” Palmieri says, referring to an operation guide that was written by the Office of Water Resources, which is part of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
“We did a lot of hydraulic modeling,” says Rita Lee, chief of engineering studies for the Office of Water Resources. Immune to political pressures or human whims, gate adjustments follow strict formulas. If the water in Fox Lake rises four-tenths of a foot in a day, the gates at Stratton Dam and the smaller Algonquin Dam downstream are opened.
“We're trying to move so much water out of the Fox River system before the water comes down from Wisconsin,” Lee says of the suburban drainage area that encompasses 1,250 square miles. “During smaller rainfall events, we try to use the storage in the Chain O' Lakes,” but opening the gates during the flood “was a very easy decision,” she says.
“Sometimes we adjust gates three or four times a day,” Palmieri says, running through some of the questions water officials contemplate. “Did it rain today? Did it rain in New Munster (Wisconsin)? How long will it take to get here?”
The river in Wisconsin might crest three or four days before that water hits the Stratton Dam. Daily at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Palmieri checks a dozen gauges from New Munster down the river to Algonquin, records water levels by hand into a thick logbook, and monitors two computer screens filled with information, charts and graphs.
“I look at it, as does Springfield. Sometimes we'll talk numerous times on a daily basis,” Palmieri says. His small office, which looks out on the dam, features an air-conditioner, a bathroom, an old TV, a small fan, a printer, a tiny microwave oven, a 12-cup coffee maker, a mini-fridge, a water cooler, a phone, a control terminal and his computer and screens. Nearby parking lots are flooded.
The first dam at this spot was built in 1907 after members of the Fox River Navigable Waterway Association secured a federal permit to build a wooden structure. The wood didn't last and was replaced a few years later by a steel model, which has been updated and expanded several times since. A little more than two years ago, Stratton Dam, named after former Gov. William Stratton, expanded its lock so that it could accommodate more boats at a time and relieve some of the traffic waits for boats moving between the Chain and the river.
The dam and locks are manned by Palmieri or one of the four other employees from 7 a.m. until midnight every day in the summer, from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. in nonpeak months and closed in winter. Adjusting the water levels to keep the Chain and the river optimal for recreation and navigation in the summer, Palmieri lowers the level in the Chain O' Lakes between 18 and 24 inches in the winter, which should help the area handle snow melt and rain expected in the spring.
Flooding is a natural part of the Chain and the river, Lee says. The water controlled by the dam still has to go somewhere, and there are no huge reservoirs to store water. The dam can alleviate some flooding damage, but it can't stop the water.
“It's going to do what it's going to do,” Palmieri says, noting that he gets enough of water at work. “I used to boat. I had a nice one, too. A Sea Ray. But when you work on the water …”
Not that he has time for any leisure activity since the flood. “My phone's ringing from 6:30 a.m. until 10:30 p.m.,” he says.
Just downstream from the dam, a sign submerged in the water reads, “Keep.” The second part of the warning for boaters to “Keep Right” will remain underwater until the floodwaters ebb. With boating suspended during the flood danger, the hot and sticky air is quiet enough to hear a bird land in the river.
“I think that's a cormorant,” Palmieri says, pausing to take in the scene. “It can be tranquil.”