After Illinois officials led the fight against BP dumping increased amounts of pollutants into Lake Michigan from its Whiting, Ind., refining plant, along comes Republican congressional candidate in the 8th District, Ken Arnold, with his "new" plan to ease flooding in the Des Plaines River basin.
Ah, but only if the plan were new and if only the plan made any sense. First, Arnold's plan proposes building a trench from Gurnee to Lake Michigan to dump excess flood waters when the normally placid Des Plaines floods during periods of heavy rains, such as which occurred in August. Second, the state came up with a similar plan back in the '90s to building a flood tunnel --- flunnel --- with the same goal in mind.
That plan was scrapped after somebody pointed out the obvious: Why dump what could be polluted water into Lake Michigan, which is used for half of Lake County's drinking water. Indeed, there certainly are cheaper methods to ease flooding: Don't build more structures in the floodplain, an idea Gurnee officials have rejected repeatedly; buy up flood-prone structures; investigate the possibility of a levee. That's just a few ideas.
Here's another one: Who knows what's in that water and to introduce it into Lake Michigan would be criminal. Most sandbags are picked up by emergency officials because if flood water touches them, they are considered contaminated. Yuck. And this guy wants to funnel it into the Big Lake?
Building a trench on the ComEd right-of way from Gurnee to Waukegan is what Arnold wants to do. It was a bad idea back when the state thought of it, it's a worse idea a decade ago. If this is the type of homework Arnold is doing, he should unsaddle his horse and get off the campaign trail. Recycled ideas are a dime a dozen and this is one of them.
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