For a detailed explanation of the storm water issues at the Spinning Wheel interceptor and the proposed Veeck Park sewage treatment facility, please refer to:
October 28, 2008
Residents educate Village on upcoming sewer bonds
At Thursday night’s public hearing before the BOT on the issuance of bonds to build the sewage treatment facility at Veeck Park, resident Sam Eddins asked a series of well‐documented questions that left consultants scrambling for answers. After two and a half hours of discussion, consultants from engineering firms Huff and Huff, Clark Dietz, and the Village's environmental attorney, Bill Seith, were sent back to check facts and review their assumptions. Eddins' line of inquiry centered on whether the sewage treatment facility being proposed would:
1. Solve the storm water problems of the Village;
2. Satisfy the terms of the Flagg Creek Water Reclamation District (FCWRD) lawsuit;
3. Alleviate sewer overflow problems north of Ogden at Spinning Wheel;
4. Eliminate the $8.00 FCWRD surcharge imposed on Hinsdale residents for problems arising from combined sewers;
5. Need to be built at all if recommended maintenance and repairs are implemented.
Eddins pointed to discrepancies in water flow calculations contained in various consultant reports that have served as the basis for the design of the Veeck Park facility. Likening perceived errors in water flow calculations to the errors that precipitated the Mars Probe debacle--when a failure to convert English units of measurement used in construction, into metric units used for operation, caused the Probe to “blow through the atmosphere to the sun"--Eddins alerted the Board to a possible transcription error in the measurements relied upon by engineers.
What raised the red flag?
Conflicting data in the reports made available to the public caused Eddins to question the engineers' calculations. ”Does it strike you as strange," he asked Board members, "That Clarendon Hills has twice the dry weather capacity we do in this report, even though we have 2.5 times the residents and about 3 times the land area, and we do not have a golf course that retains water?” He made a strong case that the storm water flow measurements were off by a factor of 7.5 times. This miscalculation results in Hinsdale being forced to comply with a flow capacity based on disproportionate numbers. In addition, Eddins questioned whether the proposed design would allow the facility to function as expected. Portions of the report by CTE, the consultants who did the initial Flagg Creek (FCWRD) engineering study, pointed to sections of the sewer system that would benefit from repair or maintenance. In some sections even 6" of sediment can reduce flow capacity by up to 50%, Eddins said. Furthermore, any facility built at Veeck Park-- downstream of the Spinning Wheel lift station--would not solve sewer overflow problems north of Ogden Ave., as expected. Jim Huff, principal of Huff and Huff, said that his directive had nothing to do with solving sanitary overflows at the Spinning Wheel lift station, but was intended to "bring the community into compliance with Illinois state regulations." Bill Seith subsequently contradicted Huff's statement by saying "a purpose of the Veeck facility was to relieve pressures into the Spinning Wheel interceptor line," and cited language to that effect in the engineering report. Trustee Cauley asked for subsequent confirmation that "the Veeck Park facility would decrease the [sanitary sewer] overflows at the Spinning Wheel lift station," as promised.
Rules of Thumb
Eddins qualified his remarks by saying that he was “supportive of the efforts of the Board to address the storm water issue," and, as a resident, was reluctantly evaluating the project. An electrical engineer by training, he admitted he had not done hydraulic calculations in some years, but had spent several hours studying the reports and applying well‐accepted “rules of thumb” and standard equations related to fluid dynamics to arrive at his conclusions. Village resident and paid consultant Bill Seith, who oversaw negotiations with Flagg Creek and worked with consultants Clark Dietz and Huff and Huff, admitted that he was not an engineer at all, but an attorney, and defended the consultants’ calculations. Jim Huff was called in mid-meeting from a family emergency to help shed light on ambiguities arising from Eddins' questions. Eddins acknowledged that Huff was at a disadvantage, having missed the first half of the hearing, and offered to sit down with the consultants to discuss his findings.
Cart before the horse
Other members of the audience had questions as well. Resident Robert Patzlaff asked if construction of the Veeck Park facility would end the $8-per-household surcharge imposed by FCWRD since 2006, and why this $3.5 million bond issue was not taken to referendum so that every resident in Hinsdale "could vote up or down on it." Village Manager Dave Cook said that the Village was taking advantage of a provision in Illinois State statutes that allows for infrastructure bonds to be issued via a “back‐door” referendum. Trustee Schultz suggested that Patzlaff check the Village web site for background information on the project. Other than the July 10, 2008 BOT meeting at which the sewage facility was approved, most of the early discussions took place in closed session because they hinged on the FCWRD lawsuit. Seith stated 11 hours of public meetings were held, but that his "responsiveness summary" of questions and answers was not yet finalized.
Will this settle the FCWRD lawsuit?
Hinsdale resident Jerry Mejdrich pressed Seith and the Board to reassure residents that construction of the Veeck Park facility would satisfy the FCWRD lawsuit, even though remaining combined sewers were not yet separated--a contingency of the original and amended complaint. If Hinsdale builds this facility, Mejdrich asked, "We are convinced that this baby is going away?" Village President Mike Woerner responded, "That's what they tell us," and deferred to Bill Seith. Trustee Cauley asked Seith whether negotiations with FCWRD were finalized and if there was some language in the agreement that would buy the Village "peace for some time" from future FCWRD complaints. Seith stated, although he had some verbal and written assurances from the district, the settlement agreement was not yet drafted and it would be up to the BOT to determine whether to spend the money on the Veeck Park facility before the final agreement was signed. "Is it possible FCWRD may come back with more conditions?" asked Trustee Cauley. "Anything is possible," Seith replied.
In his final remarks, Eddins challenged the Trustees: "I don't know whether you feel as comfortable with this project right now as you did when you walked in here tonight." Eddins admitted that most of his own questions remained unanswered. He urged trustees to delve more deeply into the issues raised before moving forward on the project. "If [the Veeck facility] solves the problem that it was going to solve, then I am all for it," Eddins added. "But if there are other ways we can spend the money to fix the problem, we need to find those out." Woerner thanked Eddins and charged the four consultants: “You guys know what your action steps are.”