Mount Prospect moves forward with flood control project at Aspen Trails Park

Mount Prospect trustees this week agreed to spend about $4.3 million for a flood control project at Aspen Trails Park on the northeast side of the village.

The stormwater detention project promises to provide relief to neighborhoods impacted by stormwater flooding near Levee 37 along the Des Plaines River.

The estimated cost of the work is $9.3 million, with about $5 million funded with a Rebuild Illinois grant through the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. That grant has yet to be approved, however.

The village also has applied for a grant from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

If the funding comes through, construction is expected to begin in late spring 2021.

In a presentation before the village board Tuesday, Public Works Director Sean Dorsey explained that while Levee 37 protects surrounding neighborhoods from river flooding, it also prevents stormwater from draining to the river.

"And if we had a bad rainstorm, a lot of that water was trapped in the neighborhoods," he said. "It flooded streets and, in particular, it flooded many homes that had below grade entrances, such as below-grade garages."

The village, in conjunction with the River Trails Park District, is building two areas for additional stormwater storage, because the pump stations along the levee alone will not solve the problem.

One of those storage areas, at Burning Bush Trails Park, is nearly complete and already has been used during recent storms.

The Aspen Trails project consists of an underground vault providing 17 acre-feet of water storage.

"What the storage areas do is they allow the pumps to keep up," Dorsey said. "It allows us to store some water in a place that causes no harm. It's not in roads, it's not in people's homes, and the pumps can have the time to process the water and get it out of the neighborhood."

Trustee Richard Rogers said the area has flooded for years.

"This Aspen Trail Park (project) will definitely remove most of that water," he said. "So this is going to be a major improvement for those houses along Park Avenue and along River Road."