Wheaton Briarcliffe Lakes Study Phase II

A City of Wheaton Council Meeting was held on July 20. This meeting included a discussion of the "Briarcliffe Lakes Study Amendment."

The expenditure of about $32,000 was approved. The engineering company will conduct a study of impact of Downstream Properties Capacity. This decision is a consequence of the first study which included an analysis of possible solutions. The city has apparently decided that moving water out of lake 4 is the best solution. However, the study amendment also includes a house study, which I would describe as an impact study. Once a final course of action is decided upon, then it will be necessary to determine how to pay for the solution. There are purportedly FEMA grants available, but of course there is a real competition for these funds.

The study should be completed and a report issued in October 2015.

The meeting was lightly attended.

Summary
The "Briarcliffe Lakes" are in the Briarcliffe subdivision of the City of Wheaton. These lakes are part of a five lake chain which receive stormwater and are part of a very large watershed. One third of the watershed is in the Village of Glen Ellyn. However, water flows downhill and so the watershed drains into Wheaton's Lake 4, which is part of the city's storm water system. Unfortunately, this lake cannot handle the changes on storm water management by the College of DuPage. So the capacity is not adequate. It is also unfortunate but this lake is the final one in the chain. In recent years, both lakes 3 and 4 overtopped, as did Pond's 7 and 9 in Glen Ellyn. These then inundated nearby properties with stormwater. In some respects the situation is now like "musical chairs." Water from the watershed has been literally "dumped" into the lap of the City of Wheaton. It now finds it has no where to go with this. The nearby Village and College have successfully offloaded their water to others.