Valley Lakes Awards

Last week at the Stormwater Management Meeting we recognized the Valley Lakes HOA. Here are the comments that our Executive Director made while recognizing the HOA.

The Association’s work to restore and manage 273 acres of wetlands, naturalizing and buffering stormwater detention ponds, stewardship and educating the residents of your community stands out as a model for other subdivisions and neighborhoods to follow. Thank you for being a leader in the restoration and enhancement of the green infrastructure servicing your community for the betterment of your residents and all residents in the Fox River watershed.

Valley Lakes Wins Yet Another Award!

The United States EPA in Chicago and the Chicago Wilderness Conservation has awarded Valley Lakes the Native Landscaping Award. This award was created to recognize outstanding efforts by corporations, park districts and municipalities to use native plants in the landscape or use conservation development practices within the Chicago Wilderness region.

Valley Lakes wins an Award

I am very pleased to announce that the Valley Lakes HOA has received a very prestigious county wide award from the Stormwater Management Commission as Development of the Year! For those of us who live in we know the hard work the boards put in to making this development one of the best in Lake County! I have included the before and after shots of some of the areas that were addressed above.

An awards dinner will be held on December 6th with the regular SMC meeting to follow at the Byron Colby Barn, Prairie Crossing Subdivision in Grayslake. The dinner will start at 6pm and the meeting at 7pm.

• Community of the Year: Village of Vernon Hills for various projects this year including the Seavey Ditch restoration and Lake Harvey restoration.
• Development of the Year: Valley Lakes Community Association, Round Lake, for restoring six natural wetlands and 21 ponds under their jurisdiction, and they will be doing more restoration of the 273 acres of wetlands the VLCA manages.
• BMP Project of the Year: Mundelein Park District's Aquatic Center Bio-swales.
• Stormwater Manager of the Year: Lydia Scott, for her work on several projects including the Des Plaines River restoration projects and the Florsheim Nature Preserve restoration. She also is very active in both planning committee and leadership roles in Upper Des Plaines River Ecosystem Partnership , Chicago Wilderness and North Branch Chicago River watershed plan process.
• Stewardship of the Year: Bill Grinnell, Fremont Township Highway Department, for his dedicated leadership on within Fremont Township on many drainage and stormwater related projects .
• Media Award: Pioneer Press' July '07 "Power of Water" series of articles on wetland restoration, rain gardens , a former SMC employee working in Bolivia on water projects, and the health benefits of drinking water. Reporters: Stephanie Fosnight and Dan Pearson.

Specific credit needs to go to the Valley Lakes Board John F. Flader, President, John R. Gutknecht, Secretary and Tami Bradford, Treasurer. Tallgrass Restoration and Mark Micek (project manager) and Linda Yunker (grant co-ordinator) Tallgrass does all the work and manages the project.

Also mention that Valley Lakes Community Association is a member of the Chicago Wilderness and is dedicated to pursuing "Best Management Practices" (BMP's) when managing the landscaped and non-landscaped areas owned by the Community Association.

Development Article in Chicago Tribune Recently

NOTE: I found this on a Construction Law Blog, I have no idea of the veracity of this, but Neumann built about 500-600 homes in the village a few years ago, so its seems of some interest to us.

"Builder chief denies firm is in trouble; 'Most profitable year' for Neumann Homes": Ken Neumann, president of Warrenville, Illinois-based Neumann Homes, lashed out at other builders in connection with speculation the company is for sale or on the verge of bankruptcy. "No, the company is not for sale. I own the company," Neumann said Thursday. "This is the most profitable year in the company's history." Family-owned Neumann, which opened in Chicago in the early 1990s, is one of the largest of the remaining independent local builders. The company is the builder of megadevelopments such as the The Clublands in Joliet and The Clublands in Antioch. The firm is among the 50 biggest builders in the United States, with operations in Wisconsin, Colorado and Michigan as well as Illinois. In 2005 the company built 1,900 homes and had $518 million in revenue, Ken Neumann said. Neumann said he believes the rumors began when someone claimed, at a meeting of officials of rival Centex Homes earlier this year, that Dallas-based Centex was buying Neumann. Dan Star, president of the Illinois division of Centex, said he is unaware of any such statement and does not believe it was ever made. Whether or not that incident occurred, Neumann Homes recently raised eyebrows in local building circles when the company took the unusual step of auctioning 1,000 acres of land in high-growth suburban areas such as Huntley, Sugar Grove and Montgomery.

Storm Photography over Valley Lakes

This picture was sent to me by Bob Fesus a long-time Round Lake Resident, who lives in Valley Lakes. He has captured a few shots like this before almost a year ago as a matter of fact.

Pretty wild! I am not sure how he gets the exact instant lightening comes down but however he does it, its great!

Bob has some interesting hobbies in addition to this kind of photography he is an avid scuba diver. Hopefully not practicing the two hobbies of lightening photography and scuba together however!

Valley Lakes Marsh Land

Two board meetings ago John Gutknecht made a short presentation to the village board here was able to email to me the rough draft of the presentation and I will reproduce it below. John has been a guest blogger here in the past, but John has joined the blogosphere as well with a well written and well researched blog. By the way the village board agreed to John and the Valley Lakes HOA's request. He also has a PDF version of his slide here.

We’re here tonight asking for your support with a specific project but more importantly to lay the foundations for a partnership on this and similar projects in the future.

In order to understand this partnership, I think it will help if I explain why the Valley Lakes Community Association is involved in ecological restoration and maintenance. I’ll review our mission, our action plan, go over a couple examples of the work we’re doing and then review what a partnership with Round Lake will offer to our members and to the Village.

I know everyone is familiar with the basics of Valley Lakes, but did you know the Valley Lakes Community Association owns over 284 acres of property? And did you know that unlike most other HOA’s most of the property we own is undisturbed wetland? In comparison Nippersink Forest Preserve (right here in Round Lake) is about 300 acres with less than 200 acres of wetland.

The reason we’re involved in ecological restoration and maintenance is simple; as the owners of this much property, we owe it to our members and the Village to be responsible owners and ensure that this property is cared for and protected for generations to come.

I think everyone understands the environmental impact of wetlands on the local waterways and ground water, and I have no doubt everyone is aware of the global issues surrounding the environment, but there’s more to being environmentally responsible than just “being green.” There is a financial side to it as well. Having a HEALTHY wetland nearby can increase home values by as much as 20% - This in turn adds to EAV.

So whether it was because of the desire to be environmentally responsible, project their investment or some combination of the two - our members made it clear that PROPER management of our open spaces was a priority for them. We have committed to our members that we will maintain our property in a way that will both protect the investment of our members in their homes and protect the investment of the Village in Valley Lakes.

To fulfill this mission we have adopted an action plan that broken down into its basic parts consists of; ecological restoration, strategic partnerships and pursuing every funding opportunity available.

The first step in our restoration focuses on shoreline restoration. The single largest expense for our members in the future will be the dredging and maintenance of 22 detention ponds. The best way to reduce and delay those costs is by implementing an aggressive shoreline restoration program. This is one of 2 ponds done in 2006. All together we restored just over 62,000 square feet of grass into 62,000 square feet of high quality native plants. This is year one of a three year program and represents a $40K investment from our members in their community.

It has the potential for saving $200K in 20 years in dredging and dumping costs. In addition to the financial benefits, it also has the added bonus of improving water quality in these ponds, our wetlands and downstream into Long Lake and the Chain-o-Lakes. This program has been so successful that we plan to continue this program with 5 more ponds in 2007 and more in 2008.

The detention ponds in Valley Lakes all flow into one or more of our various wetlands and the next part of our plan focuses specifically on those areas. We commissioned a professional inventory and assessment of wetland areas this past summer and in line with our expectations received an overall grade of D. While not something to be happy about, in this case a D is about average with the rest of the Chicago region, so while it could be a lot better, it could actually be a lot worse.

Although most of the areas have been heavily disturbed and are rapidly degrading there are traces of some high quality remnants. These areas, even if small, are important reservoirs of genetic material for maintaining regional biodiversity and worth preserving. So with help from our experts we’ve developed a restoration plan that will kick off this spring.

The objective of the plan is to: Protect, Manage and Restore. Our goal is to stabilize first, then lay the ground work for recovery. We’ll be using the best scientific principles and management methods to implement this plan including biological control agents for control of one of the worst plants - purple loosestrife. We’ll also be doing controlled burns (something that is long overdue), and establishing new native plant communities and providing habitat for native wildlife such as the wood duck and the eastern blue bird.

We couldn’t possibly have done all of this on our own. Early on we knew that it would be important to develop strategic partnerships. We were fortunate enough to receive support from the Lake County Forest Preserve. Through Bonnie Carter, our County Board rep and President of the Forest Preserve Board, we’ve had access to some of the district’s key staff and resources. Our partnership was so strong that the Forest Preserve sponsored our application for membership in the Chicago Wilderness Consortium. We were awarded membership in this group in January and through their network of public and private land owners, now have access to technical and financial resources that are only available to members.

Finally we’ve partnered with the Fox River Ecosystem Partnership, a diverse group of landowners, businesses and non-profit organizations that work to fund an implement various projects throughout the Fox River watershed and hired Tallgrass Restoration, LLC. as our exclusive general contractor to develop and implement all of our plans. Tallgrass is one of the founding members of Chicago Wilderness and has a long history with not only the Lake County Forest Preserve, but the Chicago Botanical Gardens, the Morten Arboretum and other area leaders in ecological restoration projects.

Obviously there is a financial investment required in funding all of this work. To date the shoreline restoration projects have been 100% HOA funded. In an effort to offset some of those costs going forward, we’re in the process of applying for funding through the Illinois USDA Conservation 2000 program to cover shoreline restoration costs starting in 2008. The C2000 program has long recognized the benefits of shoreline restoration and it is our hope that grants will cover the cost of continuing the work we’ve already started.

We secured a $25,000 donation from Pritzker when we acquired the Mud Lake wetland and we’ve used some of that money to cover the costs of the wetland assessments and the development of our restoration plans. We expect that money to more than cover the costs of creating those plans and technical documents, but it won’t come close to covering the cost of implementing those plans. For that we’ve budgeted $25,000 to get started and have applied for matching funding through the USDA Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) program.

We were notified last week that not only did we receive that funding – guaranteed for the next 10 years – but we qualified for 100% funding due to the high priority given to Valley Lakes due to the number of endangered and threatened species in the area. While we’re still drawing up the detailed plans and reviewing the various costs, it’s hard to tell exactly how much money this could be, but it could be as much as $500,000.00 over the next 10 years!

So, as you can see there is a good reason we’re involved in this work, and we’ve already made a tremendous investment in getting these projects started. Tonight, the reason we’re seeking a partnership with the Village is to qualify for funding through the C2000 program. This program, which would cover the costs of various shoreline restoration works starting in 2008, requires applicants to establish partnerships local governments and agencies.

As I mentioned we’ve already established a partnership with the Fox River Ecosystem and The Lake County Forest Preserve, but we’d like to include the Village of Round Lake among our list of partners. This is an excellent opportunity for the Village because it will directly benefit one of our areas richest natural resources. It also speaks to the commitments already made by this board in its effort to receive Tree City USA designation and the designation of so much open space on the comprehensive plan.

At this time, we’re hoping for a commitment from the Village to provide a minimal investment of time and material of 2 days of work for 1 or 2 people, a wood chipper and disposal of debris (that can not be used on site.) This is for work to be done in 2008.

We hope that you’ll recognize the value of the work that we are doing to protect, maintain and restore our property and the impact that work will have on our community. We also hope that you’ll join us as a partner in these and other future programs so that together we can fulfill the promise of the original vision for Valley Lakes to provide a model for how a natural habitat can be successfully integrated into a residential community. I’d like to invite you to join us at the Police and Public Works building prior to our annual meeting on April 18th for a more detailed presentation on our shoreline and wetland restoration projects given by Tallgrass Restoration. If you know of anyone that would be interested in attending, please extend this invitation to them.

Thank you for your time this evening and I hope we can CONTINUE to count on your support.

Animals in the Wetlands

Recently I have been noticing and getting complaints about people walking pets in and around in the wetlands at Valley Lakes and in other developments as well. The village inserted as standard verbiage into most of the relevant HOA declarations the following.

Section 8.17 of the Valley Lakes declaration lists prohibited acts: "No Unit Owner, Occupant, or Person shall be permitted:" and if you read down you discover that section item J reads:
(j) to bring or allow to enter into a dedicated wetland any dog, cat or other animal or pet.

The above was placed in the declarations for Valley Lakes specifically because the Army Corps of Engineers required it because of the wetlands studies that Pritzker (the original owners) had to go through.

While the declaration does not specifically prohibit a member from entering the wetlands, it does prohibit dogs (and minors). I would like to discourage residents from wandering at will through the wetlands and prefer to encourage them to think of them as "off limits". In Valley Lakes there is a walkway through a portion of the wetlands with plans to add more in the future, but members are encouraged to stick to those areas and not wander at will through the wetlands. The area up near Valley Lakes 2 (Behind the CVS) tends to be high ground and as such is dryer and already criss-crossed with trails which I think encourages them you think they are open to member access. In Madrona Prairie Walk and Lakewood we have a path system set up that hopefully encourages you to walk your dogs on it

It's ultimately up to your HOA board to create a policy to determine how to manage access to this area, however in no circumstances would it be okay for a member to bring a dog with them. I would encourage the HOA to post "No Trespassing signs" (as required by the declaration and wetland maintenance agreement on file with the Village in most cases) and make sure all of the residents knew that if they were going to go out in this area that they should ensue they do not cross these areas.

I would also ensure that a sign was installed facing into the property along the perimeter anywhere there is a path that indicated that was the limit of the property. This puts the burden on the Association to mark it's own property line (again, as required in the agreement) and put the burden on anyone choosing to go back there to stay on HOA property. I would also make sure it was clear to residents that dogs are not allowed in these areas. I would also discourage members from entering these areas until sufficient restoration and preservation efforts have been put forth to sufficiently protect them. The ones between Valley Lakes and Valley Lakes 2 for example are after all some of the highest quality wetlands in the area.

I know that the Valley Lakes HOA who own the Mud Lake wet lands is in the process of developing a wetland maintenance plan for the Mud Lake wetlands that will protect this area for the long term.

I would encourage all HOA's to carefully review their declarations and implement polices to protect these wetlands.

Valley Lakes Homeowners Association Meeting Last Night!

I was invited to speak at the Valley Lakes Homeowners Association last night. I spoke about a variety of thing to a nice cross section of the community. Had some good give and take about what we are doing in the village and , how we are doing. I think I spoke for well over an hour.

I have believed for some time, and even more so now that Valley Lakes is one of the best run HOA's around. They do excellent things and I am quite happy they are my HOA to be candid. I won't steal their thunder, but go check out the web page for Valley Lakes at www.valleylakes.org.

The picture by the way is of one of the ponds that have been restored with their Shoreline Restoration project, which is exceptional.

We are a Series of Beats!

The Police Department has scheduled three "“Beat Meetings"” for the month of December. Each meeting will be specific to one police beat (section of the Village). The goal of the beat meetings is to offer a clear line of communication between the police department and the citizens they serve. The beat meetings will be held in the Community Room at 6:30 p.m. on the following dates: December 1st (Beat 1), December 8th (Beat 2) and December 15th (Beat 3). There will be some information on the next water bill and detailed information will be on the police section of the village website in the next few days.

For those of you wondering what beat you are in, as I was, here is a description. For those of you who want a visual representation of where the beat boundaries are I will send you a PDF map if you email me.

Beat 1
From Park Road on the north to Route 120 on the south. From our neighbor, Round Lake Park on the east to Fairfield Road on the west.

Beat 2
From Route 134 on the north to the southernmost section of Valley Lakes subdivision. From Fairfield Road on the east to our village limits on the west.

Beat 3
Everyone south of Route 120.

I will write a little bit more about these as we get closer to the actual dates.

HOA's-- Another Voice Heard From

NOTE: This post is a first, the first not written by me. John Gutknecht wrote this on my comment section on yesterdays post, he is the first commenter to ever reach the limit to how much text could be commented on not once but three times! John and I have not been on the same page on some issues (I was right) over the years and we have agreed on others, but I can tell you that he is one of the most organized people I know and the Valley Lakes HOA runs very smoothly becuase of him. John serves the village as a board member on the Round Lake Management Commission for our lake. Our community is that much better becuase people like John live here!

Why all this hostility to HOA's?

Like it or not, mandatory homeowners associations are the result of responsible development and are the result of the evolution of residential property development and ownership. Associations are the only way to deal with the realities of commonly held property which is the result of communities demanding more "open space" and "less density" in their developments.
By purchasing into a community association, the homeowner agrees to abide by the community's pre-established guidelines. In our modern developments, homeowners live very close to each other (often on less than 1/6th of an acre) and share common facilities and property and this requires that they sacrifice certain freedoms for the cause of protecting communal property values and reducing nuisances. Reasonable restrictions, consistently enforced over time, will preserve the net value of the community and maintain a high quality of life for residents. The purpose and functions of an HOA are outside of those for municipal government which is in place to serve the ENTIRE municipality.

Even if a municipal government were to take over an HOA, they would still be required to enforce the declaration. In some cases (Valley Lakes) even if the HOA is abolished, the restrictions in the declaration "shall continue only until the expiration of twenty (20) years after the death of the last surviving child born in Lake County, Illinois, in the year 1998." which in most estimates is sometime in the year 2100!

So even if you abolish your HOA, most of the "issues" that people have with HOA's would still exist, but instead of local homeowners calling the shots, a bunch of elected politicians would be deciding the fate of your neighborhood. And who's to say that the money you pay in taxes (instead of assessments) isn't put into some general fund with only a small portion of that money actually being spent to maintain the value of your community. Do you want some guy who's more interested in being re-elected so he can protect his "good old boy" buddies deciding how much money is being spent on the upkeep of your community, or would you rather have one of your neighbors calling the shots?

Each community has a distinct and unique character that was present from the beginning. It's the HOA's responsibility to maintain that character which includes such things as architectural control and common area maintenance. Some communities are more burdened than others.
For example, Lakewood has the added amenity of having a swimming pool for it's members to use. I think it's a safe bet to say that less than half of the people buying a home there actually gave any thought as to who was going to pay for the upkeep of that pool. If you knew you were going to end up paying $300-$400 a year for the upkeep of a community pool, would you have bought a home there?? Maybe, maybe not, but just because you didn't take the time to find out you were responsible for that expense before you moved in, doesn't give you the right to abandon that responsibility.

Instead of b!~@&!%# about the your HOA, why not get involved and make a difference. I think you'll find that like most people who get involved in HOA's they quickly realize that they are bound by what the declaration allows them to do. Most HOA's are not as "all powerful" as most people think they are. But if you get involved in a constructive manner, you'll have a chance to actually have a hand in the direction of your community. You have a much better chance of affecting the direction of your community through your HOA than you do through the Village Board. But I think what's really going on here is the same problem we have in general in this country - apathy. People whine and complain about stuff - especially on the internet - but when it comes time to actually DO anything about it or voice their opinion in person, they just stay locked up in their nice suburban homes peering out through closed windows and spewing hate on the keyboard. I witnessed this first hand last year when the Valley Lakes Board increased assessments by 15% (after not having an increase for 7 years) With all of the comments and complaints we received, we were prepared for the worst. With 1172 homeowners, we expected 10-15% would show up to voice their concerns. So we were prepared for 200 or more people. When 5 (yes FIVE) people showed up, I knew we had reached a new level in apathy.

I completely disagree with the argument that HOA's are another layer of government and an additional tax on the homeowner. This is simply not true. HOA's are limited by their charter as written in the declaration. So you ALWAYS know what you're getting yourself into. A municipal government on the other hand, can write law after law anytime they want all in the interest of "public health and welfare". Your assessment money goes directly to support your community and YOUR property (you hold title in common to your community property, so it IS your property) Your tax money on the other hand goes to support the welfare of your entire community which can grown and expand at anytime. Your tax burden can increase at anytime to accommodate the growing needs of your larger community, your assessments on the other hand can only be spent for your association and that's not likely to grow once the development is finished.

If you want to live in a community that has open common space and one that maintains the architectural integrity of the community, then live in an HOA and sacrifice some of your freedoms for the assurance that you'll live in a community where everyone in the community has a stake in protecting your common property value and share in the high quality of life that comes as a result.

If you don't want those things or you just can't bear to give up your God given right as a citizen of the United States of America to paint your house purple and cover your lawn with miniature replicas of icons from around the world and silhouette cutouts of kids in cute poses then DON'T buy a home in an association, there are plenty of those homes in the area.

Nobody's forcing you to live in an HOA, you did READ the declaration before you bought your home - didn't you?

FINAL NOTE: The picture is of Valley Lakes looking South. This was about a year and a half ago.

Mailbox at the Police and Public Works Facility Installed and Ready for Action

New mailbox at the Police and Public Works facility, and for those of you in Valley Lakes we are working on one there as well!

Results from the Transportation summit

You don't have to rely on my imperfect note keeping at the LCTA Transportation summit last week for the results anymore, because I have a copy linked to this post here. I glanced at them and I was pretty close on all the important ones.

I have a busy day today, speaking today in Rockford, dropping by the Valley Lakes festival, and one other block party. As well as squeezing two soccer games in on TV, thank god for VCR's!

The Nippersink Forest Preserve

NOTE: This is a post that I ran last October about the Nippersink Forest Preserve Project, I have gotton a couple of questions about the project recently so I decided to repost it here. I would add that the proposed Synnesvedt project has a connection from the Millenium Trail to this park. One of my long range goals is to then get a crossing for 120 so we connect via a path to the homes on the south side of 120.

A couple of years ago I got frustrated with a series of developers who kept insisting that they need to build homes on Nippersink Road across from Village School. In a partnership with County Board Member Larry Leafblad we were able to chase off Neumann Homes and secure the 219 acre marsh to be added to the Lake County Forest Preserve. Now granted I did not do much other then frown and express dismay with the project and the Forest Preserve did the buying of the land. I do have issues with the Forest Preserve buying land and then not letting any one use the land that they buy, if you doubt me drive around and see all the land in the Forest Preserve, but this purchase made long term sense for the village and the area. Then about 2 years ago Toll Brothers wanted to bring 300 senior oreinted houses to the Country Lakes Resort on 120 across from Bacon Road. I had some conversations with the owners and the desire of the familly who owned the resort to sell the property. I then thought about it and referred to our comprehensive plan which led me to invite Bonnie Thompson Carter who is the President of the Lake County Forest Preserve and one of Round Lake's county board members. I drove her around the property which she knew well since her family owned portions of it way back when! I told her that I could prevent the development from happening if the Forest Preserve put up their money and bought the land for active recreation purposes. Kudos to her and the rest of the Forrest Preserve for carrying through. Last week I attended the sneak preview of whats coming and the graphic above is a representation of what is coming. The result of all of this is the Nippersink Forrest Preserve area in Round Lake. The Millenium Trail will also be coming through the area as well which is a wonderful addtion to the area.

Daily Herald Article on Water Part 2

In a continuing effort to keep my hands off the laptop I am posting part two of an excellent article in last week Daily Herald on water. I have written about our water issues in the past here and here for you to review. For those of you interested my shoulder is doing much better and I am exercising immense control in not writing some thing about the 120 Bypass CPC we had tonight!

A source deep in the Earth
By Patrick Garmoe Daily Herald Staff Writer

When most people in the Fox Valley and western Lake County turn their faucets, they tap into a process that began decades before. More than 100 years ago, water pouring out of suburban faucets this minute started its trek with a fall from the sky — in western Illinois, Wisconsin or even Minnesota.

After hitting Earth, the water seeps down, sometimes hundreds of feet below the surface, and then heads east. Over months, years, even centuries it creeps toward Chicago’s suburbs. Water pressure and slopes in the Earth pull and push the water into aquifers, layers of rock filled with water.

In the suburbs, wells reach down into those aquifers and pump the water up to pipes, and then to homes from Lake in the Hills to Batavia. This might sound strange to some, but it’s not as odd as another popular myth. Local engineer Larry Thomas sometimes still has to dispel the tale that the water around here somehow comes from Lake Superior.“No, it comes from Boone County. Sorry. It’s just not quite as romantic,” said Thomas, chief operating officer for Crystal Lake engineering firm Baxter and Woodman.

Water stays hidden
Northern Illinois homes sit above rock- and water-filled layers of ground called aquifers. “It’s a firm surface. It’s not hollow. It’s not a river running underground. It’s not a hollow underground lake you can put a boat in,” said Al Wehrmann, director of the Center for Groundwater Science at the Illinois State Water Survey.

When rain falls onto the Earth, what doesn’t end up in rivers slowly makes its way to the aquifers. The water then travels from west to east down an underground slope toward Lake Michigan or the Fox River.

In this area, there are two main types of aquifers from which we get drinking water. Shallow aquifers are nearer to the surface — normally 30 to 400 feet down — and consist predominantly of sand and gravel deposits packed with water. If one was opened, it would look like mud. Beneath them, under 600- to 2,000-foot-thick layers of rock, lie deep aquifers.

The deep aquifers consist of large layers of limestone and sandstone. Water creeps through this porous stone at sometimes an inch to a few feet a year. There are other deposits of water even farther down, but for now they largely remain untouched. The water is too salty or contains too many chemicals to be drinkable.

In southern Illinois, most deep aquifer water is too salty to use for drinking, which is why many communities outside of northern Illinois rely primarily on rivers or man-made lakes called reservoirs for water. Elgin and Aurora also use water from the Fox River.

Going deep
In this area, deep bedrock aquifers are far more favored than their shallow counterparts. That’s because in deep aquifers, the water is plentiful, easy to find and, normally with a little treatment, fine to drink. “You can drill just about anywhere and hit water,” said Dave Kublank, Algonquin’s chief water operator. That’s predominately thanks to the terrain.

Shallow aquifers are more like pockets of sand and gravel filled with water hidden among clay and other dry sediment. Deep aquifers meanwhile, are flat, thick and long. Many can stretch over large swaths of the country.

The Ogallala aquifer, for example, stretches from southern South Dakota through Texas. Therefore, there isn’t a problem locating them, like there is with their shallow counterparts. Although it’s more expensive — drilling a deep well can cost $1 million, versus $650,000 for a shallow well — it’s worth it, local water operators say.

Even when you do want to use them, shallow wells can prove elusive, or dry, as Campton Township residents have discovered in western Kane County. “It’s really limited around northern Illinois where you can get shallow water,” says John Dillon, Batavia’s water superintendent. “You have to go out and really look for it.” While water from deep aquifers in this area often must be treated for radium, the water they yield is typically better and more protected from chemicals than shallow aquifers, because they are farther from the surface. And they typically can be depended upon to provide a steady flow of water for residents. The average house in the United States uses 350 gallons per day. To provide that, a typical well around here will pump between 1,000 and 2,000 gallons a minute.

Because of the popularity of deep aquifers, the wells are pulling water out faster than rain water is replacing it. And that’s where the worry lies. “We’re going to find the deep bedrock system is not going to be able to sustain the deep withdrawals it is presently sustaining,” says Scott Meyer, associate hydro-geologist with the Illinois State Water Survey in Champaign.

Helicopter Ride

A couple of people (not me) from the village took a trip over the village yesterday via helicopter. Davis Clark gave me some great pictures and I choose these three. The first is of the wetlands in Valley Lakes, the second is of the Police and Public Works with the extension of Cedar Lake Road visible as well. The third if of Park View.

High Quality Leadership!

One of the challenges of public service is balancing what you want for your small area, your block or your neighborhood versus the needs of the greater community. It is sometimes very hard to understand the needs of someone who lives miles away from you and exists in a different part of the community then you are involved in. We have about 20 homes that actually either touches the actual Round Lake and or the Channel that leads to it., Round Lake Beach has 100'’s and Round Lake Park has at least as many homes.

So a few years the mayors of the three Round Lakes that touch the lake and founded the Round Lake Management Commission I struggled to find people to serve as our representatives on the board. Each community has 3 seats on the 9 person board I initially wanted to appoint people who lived on the lake and was able to attract a dedicated committed resident Doug Vehlow. But I struggled to pull interested people from that small subset of 20 homes over the years.

So I thought outside the box and started to identify people who demonstrated to me that they were willing to get involved in things outside their neighborhoods and I started to approach them. A couple I approached was not able to get involved based on work commitments, or child care responsibilities and for that I am actually grateful they were candid and honest about it with me. I approached a gentleman who was active in his Home Owners Association and active in local politics last year to serve on the RL management committee named John Gutknecht who lives in Valley Lakes, and he has been exceptional.

My plea a month ago or so brought me Niel Flam also of Valley Lakes who has already impressed me with his enthusiasm. So coupled with Doug Vehlow we finally have an excellent trio of representatives on this board. They/we are working towards restocking the lake this fall, doing the annual clean-up next spring, plus hopefully we will also patrol the lake for safety checks as well.

The moral of this story is "“its good to think outside the box sometimes"” also I am glad I was able to identify people who were willing to get involved in something that did not affect there small area of interest.

Light up my Life!

I found this yesterday on the WGN site taken by a Round Lake resident Bob Fesus who used to live over by me in Treehouse. There are some unreal pictures he captured during yesterday mornings storms! Unreal! This is in Valley Lakes! If you go to the WGN site there are more pictures like this from Bob.

Traffic Warning Number 2!

The second spot (see yesterday's post for the first) we are getting complaints about is making right turns off of 60, and then left turns on to Norwell, then a right onto Raymond to evade traffic on 60.

I have directed that Public Works install stop signs at Arden and Norwell and make it a three way stop sign. With all the appropriate striping. This is where we are going to be running the second part of our "Stop Sign Awareness Program"!
We will have helpful officers making sure that you are obeying the law, and giving you friendly reminders in yellow!

Many thanks for the two maps to Valley Lakes resident John Gutknecht, he was unaware of my nefarious purpose in requesting his google mapping expertise. However he certainly has a talent!

More Bike Racing Today

Interesting day today, I am going to see the 1 day Inaugural Grayslake Cycling Classic at Prairie Crossing in Grayslake. It's Chicagoland's newest and most unique criterium, featuring a fast, flat horse-shoe shaped 1.1 mile course! There are all sorts of age group and gender related races throughout the day with the professionals riding last around 4pm.

I have often thought the village of Round Lake should sponsor a race, although my thinking was a 5K run through Round Lake's neighborhoods, the logistical problems are bigger then you would imagine. How do you cross Fairfield, and 120? I think it would be cool to race right down Cedar Lake through Bright Meadows, Madrona and into Lakewood, or then up to Valley Lakes. Although that might be a 10K. The other thought I had before one of the parades is run the Round Lake Mile...start at Washington and Cedar Lake and run north of Cedar Lake right over the hill and down into Round Lake Beach. Be kinda cool with all the people lining the route waiting for candy. I tried convincing the park district about that one, but no takers there!

I also thought of a beat the Mayor race for charity, but that might be to charitable, judging by my slow run this morning!

Train Station Improvements

One of the goals of my administration has been to improve our Metra station. We have been able to get funding for improvements to the Long Lake Metra Station via a CMAQ grant recently. Hopefully we will be adding over 200 spaces to that station along with a walking path connecting it to Valley Lakes.

We also applied for funding, and got it, via the federal government's Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century provides money for state Transportation Enhancement Programs (ITEP in Illinois). The idea is to enhance transportation systems while building more livable communities and improving the quality of life. NOTE: For the life of me I can't recall how much money we got, its way to early in the morning for that type of thinking!

Davis Clark our Director of Public Works and our Engineering department recently met with IDOT to kick-off the ITEP funded Metra Corridor Beautification and Pedestrian Access project that we recently received funding for.

The scope of work we are comptemplating is as follows:

• Concrete bin and foundation removal.
• Embankment replacement and general grading & leveling and seed the site north of the tracks.
• Extension of paver sidewalk north of the tracks along the west side of Cedar Lake Road.
• Construct an ornamental fence along, and parallel to, the north side of the tracks to prohibit pedestrians crossing at a non-controlled section of the tracks.
• Provide tree and shrub landscaping along the north side of the tracks and possibly additional street lights if necessary.
  

In accordance with the terms of the ITEP fund, the Village can be reimbursed for 80% of the cost for Phase II engineering for the project. However, the village may opt to pay 100% of the engineering which would provide more Federal dollars toward construction and also eliminate the need for an additional agreement to be processed allowing engineering to begin in a more timely fashion. So as you can see the village board has some say on how we proceed and at what speed.

I have a very preliminary concept plan here which might be tough to see but it gives you and idea of what we are thinking about. Please email me at bgentes@eroundlake.com for a copy.