For the second time contact has been made regarding the City of Chicago Department of Water Management “Rain Blocker Program”. As I have said before years and years ago, the program which was piloted in Edgebrook has opened a major liability for the City of Chicago. From day one, I said the reduction of an entrance to a engineered drainage system is not code. The greatest problem areas include schools, and congested areas which garbage accumulates. Edgebrook is normally well maintained, (exceptions noted here before), so maybe the designed was flawed from the outset. Also the city failed to report honestly, city employees bust the device out when flooding occurs. Please note the contents of this “Chicago Orange Peel”, If you have had flooding contact Quinlan & Carrol ltd. 30 North LaSalle 29th Floor Chicago, Illinois 60602 Phone 1-312-263-0900. The lawyers on this case are James Niewiara and William R. Quinlan. The current lawsuit is Costello v. City of Chicago. Photo by Patrick McDonough.
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A Bit of History
You might be interested to know that the design for the vortex as it’s called was done by Harza Engineering. They received a cool $1.5 million for crunching some numbers using an old version of Quatro Pro.
Daley’s brother was hob-nobbing with Harza, took a trip to Paris, France to see how they address cleaning of the sewers out there, etc. They were friends of Daley so they got the contract.
During this period of time another name pops up as the liason between “City Hall,” Harza Engineering, the community groups of the Belmont-Craigin area and Wayne A. Strnad, who denounced the vortex program because it would then shift liability of damages to the homeowner, further degrade the foundation of a building because water would start coming up the sidewalk, onto the parkway, and then make its way onto the homeowners property. Most of the homes in the area were build in the 1920’s and had foundations that suffered from honeycomb (small pinholes that allow water to enter). The end result would be homeowner foundation deterioration. Thus, the Sewer Department, headed by another Actor named John Kosiba, tried to shift the responsibility of an adequate sewer system on the shoulders of the homeowners. (Note: the former Commissioner, Theresa Siagon, estimated that the Belmont-Cragin area would require about $85 million to fix so that the residents would not flood.)
The name of that liason person was John Pope. For those that are familiar with the South Side of Chicago, he’s now the alderman of the 10th Ward, where gobs of taxpayer money is being spent.