A new $4.1 million pump station along the Des Plaines River in Mount Prospect will help neighborhoods that have been battered by flooding for decades, officials said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday.
“This project is simply a game changer,” Mount Prospect Mayor Paul Hoefert said of the station on River Road north of Camp McDonald Road. “It will help provide an unprecedented level of flood protection for hundreds, if not thousands, of homes in Mount Prospect on the west side of River Road.”
Levee 37 Pump Station No. 2.5 is the latest in a series of improvements dating back to the 1980s aimed reducing floods along the river. Over the past 15 years, $44 million has been spent on flood mitigation projects in Mount Prospect.
The pump station is the third along Levee 37, a $36 million project completed in 2015 to ease river flooding in Mount Prospect, Prospect Heights and Wheeling. The new station provides larger pumps along the levee, replacing free-standing pumps that had installed as a temporary solution to rising river levels.
“Unfortunately, the initial permanent pumps, which are still in place today, were just not large enough to handle the bigger storms, and residents were soon experiencing flooding again,” Hoefert said.
The new Levee 37 Pump Station 2.5 in Mount Prospect should reduce the risk of large floods along the Des Plaines River, officials say.
Steve Zalusky/[email protected]
Mount Prospect Public Works Director Sean Dorsey said that when the river is up, duckbill valves at the levee close and prevent the river from flooding the neighborhood. At the new pump station, the water flows into a well, from where high-service pumps then go into operation, pouring the water back into the river.
The new pump station increases the discharge capacity of the levee pumping system to 160 to 180 cubic feet per second, up from 40 to 60 cubic feet per second.
Work began on the new station in 2021. It was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which provided about $2.8 million toward its cost. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources chipped in another $1.2 million.
Other flood control projects recently were completed at nearby Aspen Trails and Burning Bush Trails parks.
From left, Col. Kenneth Rockwell of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mount Prospect Mayor Paul Hoefert and Rick Pohlman of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources join hands at Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for Levee 37 Pump Station 2.5.
Steve Zalusky/[email protected]