Volo officials are searching for a new location for the Millennium Trail after the village mistakenly built a water tower on a Lake County Forest Preserve District easement.
If a suitable alternative can‘t be found, the village could be forced to dismantle the $1.3æmillion tower completed in December at Route 60 and Fish Lake Road. But village officials say they don’t expect that to happen.
Lake County Forest Preserve District Board President Bonnie Thomson Carter called the matter “a serious violation,” and said she was disappointed Volo built the tower without first speaking with the forest district.
“I told them I can’t believe they did this,” Carter said.
Mayor Burnell Russell said the village donated a 60-by-600-foot easement for the county’s Millennium Trail in February 2006. It would link Singing Hills Forest Preserve on Gilmer Road to the Marl Flat Forest Preserve on Fish Lake Road.
The village owns roughly 14 acres at the southwest corner of Route 60 and Fish Lake Road, adjacent to the easement. That parcel is earmarked for a new village hall, as well as a $5.4 million water system project.
Soil testing to determine a location for the tower showed the ground was not stable enough to support the weight of the 1 million-gallon structure, Russell said.
The tower, a water treatment building and two water wells were moved about 150 feet to the west and built, he said.
The forest district later discovered 16 feet of the tower, the wells and three concrete slabs for future improvements were built on the trail easement, he said. The treatment building is not on the easement.
The move was his “oversight,” Russell said, adding he “did not check” with the forest district before construction of the tower began.
“I’ll take the blame for it,” he said. “I should have contacted the forest preserve before we selected the new location. It’s my fault.”
Russell said he has met with forest district officials to try to find an alternate site for the trail.
“We are meeting with them and will get everything worked out,” he said.
There is vacant land nearby, but it is planned for residential development.
Lake County Forest Preserve Executive Director Thomas Hahn said no acceptable solution has been found.
“I’m extremely disappointed this happened,” Hahn said. “If the village came to us ahead of time, we could have potentially worked out another solution that may have involved moving the trail.”
Should the matter go to litigation, a judge could force Volo to tear down the water tower and move the wells, which cost about $300,000 each, village and forest district officials say.
“I truly hope we can work this out without resorting to litigation,” Hahn said. “We prefer not to go to court, but it’s our right to enforce the terms of the easement. At this point in time, the village is showing us trail corridors going around the obstructions. But, we have not seen one that works for us.”
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