LaSalle's Wastewater Plant Recovery

Today we started working in earnest on recovering our wastewater plant site. Here is a copy of our updated plan: 2008 Wastewater Plant Recovery Plan.

With all the rain, the city has also been receiving numerous calls from people who have experienced groundwater in their basements. Some residents have sump pumps and are able to pump this water out; however, many people are still calling with concern over the amount of water they are pumping. With the ground saturated and the water table already high in certain areas of the city, this is to be expected to some degree. If you have a sump pump and are concerned about the amount of water you are pumping, you can check the following to help diminish the amount of water directed to your sump pump:

• Check that all downspouts are directed away from your foundation and discharge a minimum of ten feet away. However, keep in mind you cannot discharge this water onto your neighbor's property.
• Check to make sure the ground around your foundation slopes away from your home. If not, grade your yard so that water drains away from your foundation. But again, keep in mind you cannot grade your yard in a manner that places more water on your neighbor's property.
• Some older homes in the city were constructed with their foundation drains tied into the city's sanitary sewer and have never been disconnected. If this is the case, water can back up in the city's sewer into your foundation drain during periods of high rain. To prevent this from occuring, you can disconnect your foundation drains from the city's sewer and redirect the drains into a sump pump or to another outlet that would allow the water to drain by gravity.
• Further and more detailed information can be found at the following link: Wet Basement Tips
  

LaSalle Experiences Record-Setting River Crest

Yesterday, Sept. 16, 2008, the Illinois River had a record-setting flood crest at 33.79 feet at LaSalle (from NOAA Web site). This resulted in extensive flooding in the area lying within the city of LaSalle corporate boundaries adjacent to the Illinois Michigan Canal and Little Vermilion River. The city's wastewater plant is currenty submerged under approximately ten feet of flood waters. The city's wastewater collection system is functioning; however, no wastewater is being treated at this time. Based on the NOAA Web site, we do not anticipate being able to begin recovery efforts at our plant until Mon., Sept. 22, 2008. We have established a recovery plan. Please keep in mind that this is a working document and subject to change as we proceed through with our plan.

In addition to the wastewater plant, the city will also focus on cleanup of other city property. In particular the city's well field and roadway system lying within the area of flooding. If anyone has questions, please contact me through E-mail or by calling me at the office at 815-223-7041. We will endeavor to keep up with all the normal city maintenance and operations, but ask that residents please be patient with us as we work to recover our plant.

Governor to Close State Parks

I am writing to inform our citizens about an online petition that Illinois residents can sign to let our governor know that we do not agree with his most recent decision to close many of our state parks.

http://www.gopetition.com/online/21603.html


As most of you know who live in our area, the state parks are one of the best features we have. Their closing will cause us to not only lose one of the few tourism attractions left to us, but the lack of maintenance on the parks will cause future problems.

Closing the parks is like you walking away from your house for two or more years and then trying to move back in after absolutely no maintenance has been done on it during that time. Think of the time, energy, and money that you would need to put into your home and yard after all that time to be able to bring it back to a move-in condition. Would our future politicians even deem it worthwhile at that point?

And the lack of tourism will only serve to further decrease any revenues upon which our local communities rely. We already have had a significant decrease in revenue from the state and now we face further cuts from these actions.

I have chosen to use this blog to push out this message because these decisions affect our city, our revenues, and it is a poor engineering decision on the part of our governor to close off this asset to our citizens. Please let me know if you agree or disagree with our community taking this stand.