Overland Flooding Not An Issue In Darien: Official

DARIEN, IL — Flooding in Darien streets indicates the city needs to study its drainage issues, an alderman says. But other officials defended how the city has handled flooding over the years.

At Monday's City Council meeting, Alderman Tom Chlystek showed a photo of flooding in the 8000 block of Farmingdale Drive after the heavy rainfall late last month.

"It's coming down from the north part of town to the south of town," he said.

But City Administrator Bryon Vana disagreed that overland flooding was an issue in town. And he said street flooding is by design. This is the same position taken by officials in other towns, including Elmhurst.

"The picture that Alderman Tom Chlystek showed after this rain could be almost any street in the United States. You could pick any town throughout DuPage County, they would have the same thing," Vana said.

Vana also said he saw comments on social media suggesting that Darien's infrastructure was inadequate for flooding and that the problem would only get worse. The city maintains its drainage systems, he said, so they are not deteriorating.

He said the City Council should determine whether it finds infrequent, temporary street flooding unacceptable. But he said solutions such as water detention would cost millions of dollars.

"I sympathize with residents, but I think a lot of these things aren't solved by city projects and doing detention basins because we don't have homes that are directly flooding overland," Vana said.

In the latest instance, he said, most of the stormwater drained within an hour after the rain stopped.

Chlystek said he was not asking for expensive projects to solve flooding issues. He urged the city to require property owners with big parking lots to find ways to deal with drainage.

"You can look at the biggest guys that throw the most water down the street like the Jewel parking lot," he said.

Vana and Mayor Joseph Marchese said the Jewel lot was designed to detain stormwater.

"The council has to have a discussion about what you perceive this problem is," Vana said. "Water in the streets is not a problem, unless the City Council really says, 'Well, that's a problem we need to do something about.'"

Chlystek said people cannot wait an hour for water to drain if they need to go to work or have a medical emergency.