Mallard Point flood fix closer to approval

A fix for the Mallard Point drainage problem advanced Tuesday, as the Sugar Grove village board agreed to propose an ordinance that would establish a special service area that could be billed for any solution and maintenance.

And a four-way deal for any fix is closer to reality, according to Drew Frasz, the area's Kane County Board representative.

The Sugar Grove board approved the proposing ordinance 5-1, with Trustee Kevin Geary voting against it. The ordinance also affects the Rolling Oaks subdivision, which uses the Mallard Point detention pond.

The board also agreed to call a special meeting in the next several weeks to vote on an agreement with the Rob Roy Drainage District to do dewatering tests in the subdivision. Engineers have proposed drilling several wells, to see what happens to the water table level. The paperwork for that was not ready Tuesday. The subdivision is in the district.

Rob Roy Commissioner Michael Fagel said the district has not levied a tax since 1980, and by law is just responsible for farm drainage, not anything that comes off "rooftops." It has about $5,200 in its bank account, and usually just fixes large interceptor drain tiles. Farmers usually repair smaller drain tiles on their properties, he said.

"We have expended many of our 1980 dollars on what we feel are Sugar Grove issues," he said, citing costs for lawyers and engineers. The district would need judicial approval to levy a tax, and if enough landowners in the district could protest, that could be thwarted, he said.

He noted that some of the problem could have been avoided if a bypass pipe called for in the original development agreement had actually been installed, presenting documents from the Army Corps of Engineers and a former engineer for the village indicating the pipe was missing. Engineers can't find the pipe now, either.

"That would have mitigated a lot of the problems," he said. The bypass would have taken excess water around the detention pond to drainage ditches to the south.

Fagel said that it also appears a detention pond that is supposed to be handling stormwater drainage was not dug as deep as called for. "They (the original developer) hit running sand, so they did not dig to the depth they were supposed to," he said.

Residents, village and county officials met Monday night to discuss the status of the problem and potential solutions. Frasz said the tone of the meeting was reasonable, with residents attending seeming to realize they are going to have to pay at least part of the costs, whether they think the village should be held responsible for past actions or not. Residents have repeatedly criticized the village's oversight of the building of the subdivision, which occurred from 1993 through the mid-2000s. Residents have complained of having water in their basements or sump pumps running constantly, even when there has been little to no rain.

Frasz foresees the village, the county, the subdivision residents and some farmers in the district paying, with the drainage district overseeing the work with county staff's help; determining the sizes of "the pieces of the pie" is the difficult part, he said.

The county has access to federal Recovery Zone low-interest bonds to finance the work, but the bonds would have to be issued by Jan. 1. They would be repaid over 20 years.

"If everybody bites the bullet, we can get this solved by the end of the year," Frasz said.