Chicago area needs to consider climate change in storm plans

I knew the recent storm here in the suburbs was trouble when my son noticed rainwater slowly dripping from a light fixture in my family room. I got off relatively easy. But for thousands of others in the Chicago area, the storm meant flooded homes, geysers of sewage in the streets, blocked roads and worse.

This is "urban flooding," and it happens primarily for two reasons. First, communities have paved over much of the land. As a result, water that once soaked into the ground now gets shunted into the nearest storm drain. Second, as communities built and expanded sewer systems, nobody factored in how climate change would drive more intense storms that would drop greater volumes of water.

Compounding the problem in the Chicago area, the stormwater goes into the same pipes you flush your toilets into. The murky water that came into people's homes, that's essentially raw sewage.

Officials from the city of Chicago's Water Department were quick to point out that the intensity of the storm was at fault, stating, "There's no combined sewer system in the world that could be designed to hold that kind of a burst."

While that may be true, that statement basically amounts to, "What do you want us to do about it?"

Well, there's plenty that can and should be done at all levels of government - from Chicago area municipalities, the agency responsible for the region's stormwater infrastructure (MWRD), the state and the federal government.

Some logical first steps:

• Admit you have a problem that needs to be fixed. This storm wasn't unprecedented. In the past 10 years, we've had storms so big they reversed the flow of the Chicago River, we had epic flooding hit the area in 2013 and for some of the poorest, most underserved communities, flooding is chronic and pervasive. For too many residents, any storm is cause for worry, because they've seen their homes flood repeatedly.

• Stop trying to push all the rain into the stormwater system. That isn't working. Many, including Depave Chicago and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, have called for more widespread use of green infrastructure that captures, holds and filters stormwater runoff.

• Require preservation of open space in new developments and integrate more natural features, like grass swales and plantings, into vast parking lots and paved areas. This can keep large quantities of stormwater out of the sewers - and people's homes.

While these measures alone would not eliminate flooding from major storms, they would absorb a lot of runoff, eliminate localized flooding from smaller storms (in some neighborhoods, it takes less than an inch of rain to overload the sewers) and make room in the sewers for the excess during big storms.

• Make sure people know a home's flood risks before they decide to live there. In Illinois, people selling their property must disclose to homebuyers whether the home is in a floodplain, whether they've purchased flood insurance and if they are aware of any past flooding problems. The state should also require sellers to disclose the extent of past flood damages, so people know exactly what they're getting into.

Moreover, landlords should be required to disclose similar information to renters. In Illinois, renters are given zero information about the possibility of flooding or past problems.

If the state isn't willing to act, then FEMA or Congress should put in place a national flood disclosure requirement as a component of flood insurance reform. People should not be kept in the dark about a home's flood risk.

Every infrastructure investment should address the risk of flooding. Billions of dollars are beginning to flow to states as a result of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress passed. Decision-makers in city halls, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and state officials in Springfield need to ensure these dollars support climate-smart infrastructure investments that are designed, sited and built with the future in mind; one where more intense storms are more common and more likely in the era of climate change.

It's not acceptable for municipal leaders to shrug and say they can't control the weather. We can and must make much smarter decisions about where we build, what we build and how we build.

The Chicago area needs to learn from this storm. We need to put in place policies and practices to deal with the storms that are coming.

There are no quick fixes, but we can stop adding to the problem with poorly planned development, and we can start making smarter decisions about how we build homes and the infrastructure that we all rely upon.

• Rob Moore, of Barrington, works on issues related to flooding, sea level rise and climate resilience as part of the Climate Adaptation Team at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).