Municipal flood woes fall on county

The flooding throughout DuPage County was sufficient to warrant Illinois declaring the county a disaster area. Despite this, county board Chairman Bob Schillerstrom concluded that the county did its job and that the flooding was the result of problems in local municipalities.

Unfortunately, what Schillerstrom fails to realize is that in DuPage County, when it comes to flooding, municipal failures are actually county failures. In response to repeated and severe floods during the 1980s, DuPage County passed an ordinance to establish a countywide comprehensive plan to manage stormwater. The ordinance put in place minimum standards throughout the County for managing stormwater. The ordinance charges the county with primary enforcement, but allows for municipalities to opt-out as waiver communities so long as they have ordinances that are at least as strict as the countywide ordinance.

The county imposed upon itself a duty to conduct audits of these waiver communities at least every three years to confirm implementation and compliance. According to the county's website, there are currently 40 communities in DuPage County and 33 are waiver communities. Unfortunately, calls to employees at the county stormwater permitting office and requests for documents made under the Illinoiss Freedom of Information Act revealed that no routine three-year audits of waiver communities have been conducted since 1998. The county is failing to comply with its own regulations by declining to audit these waiver communities.

At the same time Schillerstrom is claiming successful flood management by the county and blaming the flooding that did occur on municipal failures. What Schillerstrom's analysis fails to comprehend is that because the county had a duty to ensure municipal compliance with the stormwater ordinance and failed to do so, the municipal failures are one and the same as the county's.

Wes Griffith

Chicago (work in Elmhurst)