Work to begin on Des Plaines River levee

Officials expect to break ground next month on the long-awaited Levee 37 project that's supposed to protect about 600 homes in Mount Prospect and Prospect Heights.

On March 13, village officials and construction crews will meet somewhere along the Des Plaines River, which has regularly overflowed onto adjoining property during major storms, to mark the beginning of the work, Mount Prospect Mayor Irvana Wilks said.

Land easements and water retention were two issues that delayed the project. But the Cook County Forest Preserve District hammered out an agreement to allow land for a levee. Also, the problem of what to do with all that excess water has been solved. It will be stored on land owned by the Wheeling Park District, she said.

Authorities initially had been negotiating to store the water on Lake County Forest Preserve land, but the design favored by the forest preserve would have made that site too expensive and the plan fell through.

"This has been a long time coming," Wilks said.

The levee project is expected to cost about $23 million, according to documents from the Northwest Municipal Conference. The villages will pay less than 10 percent with the vast majority of the money coming from federal and state sources.

The levee will be a mix of concrete and soil to create a barrier to the rising water. It will be considered a "dry levee" because it will not be in contact with the river at all times, but only when the river floods, he said.

The milelong levee will be built between Palatine and Central roads. It will be set back east of Des Plaines River Road, but part of it will likely be visible from the road, she said.

In August 2007, the region was hit with a major deluge that flooded the area near the river, which is part of a 150-mile tributary of the Mississippi River.

It prompted local officials in Mount Prospect and Prospect Heights to redouble their efforts to get the stalled levee project moving forward again. It was replay of a 1987 flood that overwhelmed the area.

Single-family homes in Mount Prospect and townhouses and businesses in Prospect Heights were flooded in 2007, said Prospect Heights Mayor Pat Ludvigsen.

In the 2007 flood, damage was less only because flood control technology had evolved since then, Ludvigsen said. Still, the villages spent thousands of dollars that time putting up concrete barriers and sandbags, which still couldn't prevent major flooding.

Then again last fall, heavy rains sparked by a Gulf Coast hurricane left the villages scrambling once more, spending thousands of dollars to put up concrete barriers and sandbags along River Road, which still couldn't prevent major flooding.