Riverbank Repair ‘Expensive But Necessary’

DEMOTTE — During last year’s record floods, a “levee” broke along the Kankakee River, causing ditches that normally flow into the river to back up and flood homes and fields.

Jasper County Surveyor Vince Urbano said he hopes that won’t happen again this year, but the possibility is there. He and the county drainage board are looking at ways to fund a project to fix the riverbanks and prevent the flooding from happening again.

After last year’s flooding, Urbano said they were able to apply for and receive federal funds to fix the banks, but the county must have matching funds of $800,000 for the $2 million approved by the federal government.

“This is a big opportunity to take advantage of,” Urbano said. “I think it’s a ‘no brainer,’ a great opportunity for the community to get things taken care of. Right now, there’s no protection in some areas. We just hope and pray we don’t get significant rain like we did last year.”

The break, in what Urbano says isn’t really a levee, but a “spoil,” was 100 feet long and 10 feet deep. The breach was patched and, as he put it, “armored” with riprap, rock used to shore up bridge abutments and culverts. The break was near Ramses Road, northeast of U.S. 231. He said the county was lucky that it happened there because they could get the heavy equipment needed to fix it to the location.

There are areas along the riverbank where that wouldn’t have been possible. This also makes it challenging to fix areas the river could break through, he said.

When the river was dredged and straightened more than 100 years ago, the “sand spoils” from the digging became the walls that hold the river back and aren’t actual levees. To hold those banks up and to “armor” them, they need to be filled with a clay-like material mixed with rock called rip rap.

Urbano said there are 10 projects that need to be done between the county line (County Road 1200 West) and County Road 700 West, a five-mile stretch of the Kankakee River bank that needs to be restored. It will take the $2.8 million to do all of those projects.

Of the seven counties along the Kankakee River watershed, Urbano said Jasper County has the most population living along the river. He said there are homes on County Road 1500 North that they have worked with to armor those houses and save the homeowners’ investment. Maintenance of the ditches and riverbanks is an issue for all the landowners affected by the river, including homes in the Town of DeMotte.

“It’s a never-ending project with all the drainage ditches,” Urbano said.

For the farmers whose land came from the dredging and draining of the river long ago, it is a constant struggle to keep crops from drowning when the rains come. Urbano said they have to pump their fields and do maintenance other farmers don’t have to do.

“It’s a constant work in progress. There is so much to do to get good yields, but it is good farm land,” he said. “There’s a lot involved to make it happen in the old marsh lands.”

Urbano said the farming community has asked for an assessment on the land to maintain the ditches and banks through a tax levy the farmers and homeowners would pay that live along those water channels. The drainage board will have to conduct a public hearing to begin this process. Urbano expects there will be a hearing this summer.

He said the Kankakee River Basin Commission funded projects but it seems to be drying up and the legislation is pushing the counties to come up with the money on their own. Although, he said a tax assessment on ditches would affect people in DeMotte, the farmers will be “footing the majority of the funds.”

A couple of years ago, the ditches were cleaned out in town and he said it has made a difference with flooding issues from the past. Now that the farmers are seeing the good results of that, they want the same work done on their ditches.

With a maintenance fund in place, the county can borrow the money to match the federal grant and then they would have 30 months to complete the projects. The funding is a 75 percent/25 percent match.

“Opportunities like this are few and far between for the federal government to offer this opportunity for funding,” Urbano said. “We would eventually have had to do it ourselves.”

There are a lot of “ifs” for these projects to get done:

“If it happens, we’ll be on the ground next winter,” he said.

The riverbank projects have to be done during the winter when the wildlife is dormant or inactive. The work can’t be started before September, and on April 1, the work has to stop.

“There’s a short window to work in the dead of winter,” Urbano said. It will take a couple of cold seasons to get all of the work done. We have to respect the wildlife that is endangered and the environment. We have to do what’s best for all of it, not just the people. Everything has a purpose.

“We want to build the banks back up and armor it with riprap to control erosion to hold them so in 20 years we’re not back in the position we are now,” he added.

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