Recurring Flooding Spurs Storm of Complaints

Barbara Binder’s street has flooded every year for the 43 years she’s lived in Northbrook.

"Many times I’ve had to call in [to] work and say, ‘I can’t get out,’ ” said Binder, who lives on Elm Ridge Drive. “It’s a very disconcerting feeling to be trapped in your house.”

Along with several other residents of the Canterbury Drive area just east of Pfingsten Road, Binder attended last Tuesday’s village board meeting to address the village’s . 

Although trustees promised that the village was working on that would be implemented soon, Binder and others said they were reluctant to believe real change would take place.

“For 43 years, we’ve been trying to get the village to do something,” she said. “I keep being told this is going to be done, that’s going to be done and 43 years later, the problem is actually worse.”

Part of the problem is caused by the fact that the village is approving larger homes, which take up more of the permeable land, Binder said.

“Before any more of those large homes can be approved, I think the flooding issue has to be resolved first,” she said.

Binder’s neighbors, Jay and Bari Rosenbloom, who live on Canterbury Drive, said they built their home last year following the village’s specifications to create large retention areas exactly. Nevertheless, during this summer's heavy downpours, their property flooded as the rainwater backed up along the street.

“You allowed us to build a home, a very expensive home,” said Bari Rosenbloom. “We had no idea that the street and sewer system does what it does.”

Village President Sandra Frum explained the village was working to fix the flooding problem near Canterbury Drive, but said that crews had two more areas to fix before they could address that one. The sewer system causing problems in the Rosenblooms' neighborhood will not be fixed until 2012 or 2013, according to village engineer Paul Kendzior.

Northbrook’s Stormwater Management Commission has been working on a plan for the past several years, according to , who was a member of the committee for 10 years. The commission will present the plan to the Public Works Committee later in August, and ultimately, if that committee approves it, the plan will go before the village board.

So far, finding funding sources for Northbrook’s flooding issues has been the biggest problem, Frum said. The money paid into the village’s stormwater management fund is designed for maintenance, but the village needs to make substantial improvements to its overall system.

“The problem isn’t so much the conveyance, it’s that we have no place to put the water,” she said. “We are upstream of where the water goes.”

That means the village needs to find places to put retention ponds and to fund the creation of those ponds, Frum said. Roughly a decade ago, the village board approved a $10 million to $12 million retention pond near the high school, Frum explained. But more are needed.

While they wait for the village to find funding and approve a plan, residents wondered what they were supposed to do.

“I am telling you people, expedite this,” said Bari Rosenbloom. “What do you think it’s going to look like when I have to sandbag my house?”

The Stormwater Management Commission will present its plan to the Public Works Committee at 6 p.m. Aug. 30 at . The meeting is open to the public.