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player ready...By Hank Beckman
The La Grange Village Board took the first step toward the construction of the long delayed 50th Street storm relief sewer improvements with the unanimous approval of preliminary contracts at a board meeting Monday.
The decision comes on the heels of last week’s ruling by Judge Neil Cohen that the Lehigh Hanson Quarry had “wrongfully severed the Village’s sewer line” that had served for decades to dump excess rainwater into the McCook ditch.
“It’s been a long time coming,” President Mark Kuchler said before the vote on the contracts. “The judge ruled completely in our favor.”
Kuchler, who served on the Board in 2014 when the issue first arose, noted that the Board at the time hoped for a quick solution to the flooding.
“Eight years is by no definition quick,” he said.
The 50th Street sewer project was approved by a 2015 referendum and already had plans to solicit bids when the litigation placed the project into limbo. The lawsuit was filed by Lehigh Hanson and interrupted negotiations for a settlement stemming from an incident where the Quarry demolished portion of the village’s old sewer line.
The first contract approved design engineering services to be performed by Baxter and Woodman, Inc., at a rate not to exceed $447,759.
Baxter and Woodman created the original design of the 50th Street stormwater improvements and will work to expand the original scope of the project.
An additional contract — not to exceed $133,204 — was awarded to Christopher B. Burke Engineering for project management.
Also involved in the project, which is a key component of the Village’s improvements to the South Basin areas south of 47th street, is the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.
The district’s role in the project is to provide additional funding and permitting through its Greater Chicago Stormwater Partnership Program. An interagency agreement with MWRD will be needed before the Village is able to create a formal package to be put out to bid.
As for Judge Cohen’s ruling, the quarry — now the Federal Quarry, owned by Heidelberg Materials — said in an email that “We will continue to pursue our legal options, including an appeal of this decision.”
But the attorney representing the Village left no doubt that he considered the ruling to be on solid legal grounds.
“This has been a long, six-year fight with the Quarry about whether the Village had a right to discharge water into the Quarry,” Daniel L. Stanner said.
The Quarry filed suit against the Village in 2016 after failed negotiations prompted by the quarry’s fears that additional rainwater would hinder its operations.
But Stanner noted that the whole dispute was the result of the Quarry cutting the pipe in 1992.
The Quarry maintained that the Village had no signed document proving an easement that gave it legal rights to have the pipe in the first place.
“The Village filed a counterclaim saying that we had an express agreement with the Hannauer family in the 1920s, and it’s a matter of public record, and we also said that even if we didn’t have an express agreement, we had an implied agreement,” Stanner said.
“He ultimately decided that all of the Quarry’s claims were without sufficient factual or legal basis,” Stanner said.
The next La Grange Village Board meeting will be 7:30 p.m. June 26, at the La Grange Village Hall, 53 S. La Grange Rd.
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Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.