The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it wants to do more research before it proceeds with its recommendation that nine dams on the Fox River, including those in Elgin and South Elgin, be removed.
In a letter sent to municipal officials and property owners, the agency said it is going to do a new assessment in which they will evaluate the “broad or holistic” impact of dam removal and “address specific issues and effects not fully addressed in the (initial report issued last year).”
Elgin Mayor Dave Kaptain said he believes “this is a stop on this whole process. … It looks like to me they’re saying we’re going to reload and start all over.”
The Corps’ Fox River Connectivity and Habitat Study, released last year, recommended that the dams be removed for the environmental benefit of the waterway. Removing the man-made impediments would return the river’s natural flow and improve it as a habitat for fish, mussels and other wildlife, the study said.
But what was not addressed was the huge impact it would have on the city of Elgin, which draws its drinking water from the river. The water level drop would makes its intake system unusable in its current location.
And other questions arose as well. The study did not address things like the sediment, water flow and riverbank shifts that would occur with Kimball Street dam removal, prompting the Elgin City Council to commission several studies of its own.
The city could reject the Army Corps’ offer to pull the dam out free of charge, but it would be obligated to take over the cost of operating and maintaining the structure.
It’s not known if the questions raised by city officials prompted the Army Corps’ decision to do more research before proceeding.
When asked about it, Corps bioligist Ryan Johnson said in an email Friday that they are “currently evaluating the removal of dams along the Fox River under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which may result in a Programmatic Environmental Assessment, which would be released for future public comment.”
He could not be reached for additional comment.
Kaptain said he believed plans to do a new analysis mean “they’re going to look at this in a holistic way (because) the scope now has to expand.”
What he doesn’t know, he said, is if the new study is going to be a duplication of what Elgin is already paying to have done. The city has spent close to $500,000 on four studies that are looking at factors like what the river will look like if the dam is removed.
“We don’t know where this is going to go, that’s why we are doing our studies,” Kaptain said.
One study done by the city examined a natural dam occurring north of Kimball Street that showed there is sediment and loose sand at least 10 feet below the river, he said. They don’t know how far down they’d have to go before they hit rock.
Kaptain has been asking the Corps about the 250,000 cubic yards of sediment along the river that could be released by the dam’s removal and would result in environmental damage — something that’s occurred in other communities, he said.
It’s very important that the agency “drill down deeper” to look at issues like sediment shifts, sediment removal and shoreline restoration, he said.
“This has really gotten to be a can of worms,” Kaptain said.
How this will affect the Army Corps’ timeline is unknown, he added. It’s already behind schedule as evidenced by the fact that a letter the city was to receive in April asking if it wanted to commit to local dam’s removal was never sent, he said.
“(Now) they’ve completely changed direction and are going back and doing more of these extensive studies,” Kaptain said.
“I think they are a long way from getting this done. It seems like this was poorly planned. Maybe this was a little bit of a rush job when they did it last year, and it’s coming back to haunt them,” he said. “I think they got more pushback than they expected.”
The agency received more than 1,000 comments from the public about the dam proposal, according to the letter sent to officials.
Factions on both sides of the issue have been forming. Friends of the Fox worked with the Corps on the initial study and members back dam removal but vocal opposition to the idea has been growing. Guardians of the Fox, a newly formed group opposed to taking the barrier out, now has chapters in Geneva, St. Charles and South Elgin.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
