Does Fox River plan fix a non-existent problem ?

Thank you to the Herald (Thursday, Sept. 21) for bringing a nice front-page picture of the Kimball Street Dam in Elgin — and article about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to destroy all the dams from Carpentersville to Montgomery.

But “not thank you” to the Herald, for I have not seen, or have been able to find an article from the public meetings up and down the valley.

On Monday, Sept. 18, I went to a public meeting in the Kane County facility on Randal Road in St. Charles. There was a whole entourage of people from the Corps of Engineers, engineers, biologists and consultants. They explained rather well how they would bring the Fox River back to how it was 150-plus years ago, before the dams were built. There would be flocks of birds, animals and fish and all would be well — and they would have spent millions and millions of federal, state and local dollars.

These very capable meeting leaders opened for comments and questions. There must have been 200 to 300 people there. When it became clear that the valley would be drastically changed from the “rooting waters” to a wide-open area of mud flats and exposed limestone bedrock with water trickling through the middle, opposition grew in enormous proportions:

When I came to Dundee almost 60 years ago, the Fox River was terrible: waste of all kinds was dumped into the river. You could not eat the fish. And see how it is now. We have done a tremendous job of cleaning up the river.

Could it be that we are trying to solve a problem that does not exist? It was a very good meeting and thank you to those who set these meetings up and organized them. My estimate is that over 80% of the participants were against removing the dams.

Peter Orum

St. Charles