Water tower issue resolved

From the 7/13/07 Daily Herald:

How trail’s path may wind around water tower

By Russell Lissau
rlissau@dailyherald.com
Posted Friday, July 13, 2007

Lake County Forest Preserve District officials on Thursday said they’ve found a way to redirect a planned leg of the Millennium Trail around a Volo water tower that was built in the wrong spot.

The new course would bring the trail closer to a planned baseball field and park on the north side of the tower, which is near Route 60 and Fish Lake Road.

That’s slightly north of the current planned path of the trail.

Forest District administrators reviewed the proposal with their land preservation and acquisition committee Thursday. The panel took no action but seemed pleased with the solution.

The full forest board and the village board must approve the plan.

Volo Mayor Burnell Russell viewed the plan for the first time Thursday and said he’d like it to go forward. He expects the village board to approve the plan.

The site was donated by the village to the forest district last year. It’s a 60-by-600-foot easement for the Millennium Trail, which eventually will wind through much of the county.

This particular stretch of the trail will link the Singing Hills Forest Preserve on Gilmer Road to the Marl Flat Forest Preserve on Fish Lake Road.

But when the village built the $1.3 million water tower in December, officials didn’t realize part of the structure was on forest district property. Two wells and two concrete pads were improperly built on the district’s property, too.

The newly unveiled plan would relocate part of the easement, not just the trail. Volo would cover any costs associated with the effort, said Tom Hahn, the district’s executive director.

That includes finding and moving an electrical line buried on the site, said Mike Fenelon, the district’s director of planning, conservation and development.