Here's another story about Volo's incorrectly placed water tower.
Water Tower gets in way of forest preserve trail
By Susan Kuczka
Tribune staff reporter
Published February 27, 2007
It's not uncommon for Lake County Forest Preserve District officials to find storage sheds, fences, swing sets and other items on their property, usually placed thereby unsuspecting residents who don't realize they've put their personal property on public land.
But a 120-foot water tower is something else entirely, say forest preserve officials, who recently learned that the Village of Volo mistakenly built a $1.3 million water tower on land that was supposed to be developed as part of the district's Millennium Trail.
"They're a little upset with us, but I think we'll be able to work something out," Volo Village Administrator Ken Buchardt said.
Now that the water tower is up, it's likely to be a bit more difficult to find a solution. It took a complicated agreement between the village and the Forest Preserve District to come up with land for the trail in the first place, officials say.
Initial suggestions by Volo officials for an alternate path have been rejected. The first site was too hilly, a second was too close to a busy highway and a third meandered between baseball fields.
"The Millennium Trail is a wonderful amenity for the residents of Lake County and future residents," said Forest Preserve District President Bonnie Thomson Carter (R-Ingleside). "They just did what they did without even contacting us.
"My hope is that this can be worked out because it's the taxpayers who pay for lawsuits."
Volo had given the forest preserve a 600-by-60-foot easement on land it owns after the district allowed the village to use forest preserve property nearby for underground sewage pipes.
The village needed the equipment to help provide services to thousands of people expected to move to Volo over the next few years.
Volo, which had 180 residents in the 2000 federal census, has grown to approximately 2,300 and is expected to swell to as many as 5,000 by 2011, Buchardt said. The once rural town now looks like a big construction site, with new homes and commercial and industrial buildings being built at once.
The village recently built the steel water tower on 14 acres at Illinois Highway 60 and Fish Lake Road. A new Village Hall and water treatment building also are planned for the site.
The forest preserved district planned to use its easement on the village property to connect Millennium Trail from the Singing Hills Forest Preserve on Gilmer Road to the Marl Flat Forest Preserve on Fish Lake Road.
When completed, the 35-mile trail will run from the Des Plaines River Trail near Libertyville, west through Mundelein to Wauconda, north to Volo and east through Round Lake, Lindenhurst and Grayslake before reconnecting to the Des Plaines River Trail near Wadsworth.
Forest preserve officials realized there could be a problem with the path's link in Volo when officials conducting an aerial survey this winter spotted a huge hole in the Singing Hills preserve.
By the time the officials returned to the site on foot, the water tower had been sunk into the hole, with its foundation located about 12 feet inside the planned Millennium Trail property.
Buchardt said workers moved the tower from the site originally planned for it after soil samples determined that the land wasn't strong enough to support the 1 million-gallon tower, which will weigh 8 million pounds when filled.
"We had to keep moving it, and that's how it got out of hand," Buchardt said. "Nobody was really paying attention."
Village officials also believed that any trail problems caused by the decision to move the water tower about 150 feet west of its original site could be easily rectified.
That hasn't been the case so far.
With Fish Lake Road to the east, forest preserve officials say there isn't enough room left around the base of the water tower for trail users to walk safely past the structure.
"We need to have the trail far enough away from the water tower so any ice forming and dropping doesn't become a liability for our users," Carter said.
Village officials have not been able to come up with an alternate easement on the west side of the tower.
Still, officials from both Volo and the forest preserve district said they remain optimistic that a new path can be found. Officials will meet Thursday to discuss options.
Village officials say they have few left, but one thing is certain.
"That tower's not going to be moved," Buchardt said.
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skuczka@tribune.com |
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