By Andrea Earnest | Enterprise Staff
news@enterprisepublications.com
@PlainfieldNews
At its March 14 committee of the whole meeting, the Plainfield village board discussed the lower DuPage River watershed.
In the first part of the meeting, Jennifer Hammer, watershed coordinator from the Conservation Foundation, spoke to the board about the DuPage River watershed coalition.
The lower DuPage River watershed encompasses several communities, including Bolingbrook, Crest Hill, Joliet, Plainfield, Romeoville and Shorewood.
Hammer added that there are nine communities part of the coalition, and six of those have wastewater treatment plants that discharge to the river.
Several events are held throughout the year that help residents better understand what’s happening in the river.
For 2016, a bioassessment report will be finalized by mid-year. Dissolved oxygen monitoring will also run from June through October at eight sites along the main stem of the river. The lower DuPage Watershed Coalition is also partnering with the DuPage River Salt Creek Workgroup this year, and they will compile their data together for analysis.
Hammer said that DRSCW has special conditions in its communities where all treatment plants and communities in the watershed are working together on special studies and projects in return for no increases in permit limits over the next 10 years.
Hammer added that they are starting discussions with treatment plants in the lower DuPage.
Each community in the coalition pays dues, which funds the bioassessment program and part-time staffing for the project.
Plainfield contributes $21,872 a year, which is 15 percent of the total funding. In comparison, Joliet pays $16,387, Bolingbrook pays $14,141 and the Will County Stormwater Community pays $21,848.
Trustee Bill Lamb asked if there is a serious problem with dissolved oxygen.
“Fish need oxygen to live, and there’s competing factors in the water that use up oxygen,” Hammer said.
She added that the geometry of the river may affect dissolved oxygen, because in some parts the river is very flat and shallow, and there is no diversity of flow.
“We have not seen it to the point where there are fish kills in the river, but there are times that it goes below the state standards,” she said.
Ahmed Samara, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, spoke to the board about their study of the DuPage River.
Samara said the purpose of the study is flood risk management, to find the flooding areas and reduce the risk.
According to the presentation, the DuPage river is 353 square miles, with 154 of those miles in Will County. 900,000 residents live near the river, with 350,000 in Will County living near the river. The population at risk for flooding is 373,000. Samara said the potential measures the study looked at included levees or floodwalls, reservoirs, and diversions.
The Corp started studying the river last July, and by January 2017, they will have a draft report for public review, and by 2018, they plan to submit their findings to Congress.
“The next step is to take all that information and see what we’re lacking,” Samara said.