Peoria Pundit

From my inbox:

Rainfall in the City of Peoria has caused a sewer overflow into the Illinois River recently from one or more locations shown on the map located here.

When this warning is posted, please avoid full-body contact with the Illinois River in the area downstream from Detweiller Marina, as shown on the map. You may get sick if you swallow river water while swimming, Jet Skiing, or water skiing in these areas after a sewer overflow.

The City of Peoria is developing a long-term plan to reduce sewage overflows to the river during wet weather, as required under the Clean Water Act.

More bad news for people who live on the flood-prone river.

From my inbox:

Rainfall in the City of Peoria has caused a sewer overflow into the Illinois River recently from one or more locations shown on the map located here.

When this warning is posted, please avoid full-body contact with the Illinois River in the area downstream from Detweiller Marina, as shown on the map. You may get sick if you swallow river water while swimming, Jet Skiing, or water skiing in these areas after a sewer overflow.

The City of Peoria is developing a long-term plan to reduce sewage overflows to the river during wet weather, as required under the Clean Water Act.

The following landed in my Inbox:

You’re invited to attend a Build The Block news conference.

• Wednesday, October 15, 2008, 10:30 a.m.
• Gateway Building, Room 201
• 200 NE Water St.

The Peoria Riverfront Museum will announce plans for The Illinois River Encounter. Join us as we reveal exhibit designs celebrating one of our region’s most important natural resources.

Speakers include:

• Brad McMillan, Museum Collaboration Group
• Jim Richerson, Lakeview Museum of Arts & Sciences
• Doug Blodgett, Nature Conservancy
• Michael Bryant, CEO Roundtable

I won’t be there. I have to work my day job.

(Press release from Peoria City Hall)

The National Weather Service has released the latest crest prediction for the Illinois River to be at 27.4 (which equals an elevation of 455.79) on Saturday September 20 @ 1:00 PM. This elevation will require Water Street to be closed from Hamilton Blvd. to Liberty Street this evening as water has already started to accumulate at the foot of Main Street and Water Street. This closure may need to be moved to include Harrison as the water levels rise.

The road will be closed as of 5:00 p.m. today.

CSO, feces, Illinois River From an announcement:

Rainfall in the City of Peoria has caused a sewer overflow into the Illinois River recently from one or more locations shown on the map located here.

When this warning is posted, please avoid full-body contact with the Illinois River in the area downstream from Detweiller Marina, as shown on the map. You may get sick if you swallow river water while swimming, Jet Skiing, or water skiing in these areas after a sewer overflow.

The City of Peoria is developing a long-term plan to reduce sewage overflows to the river during wet weather, as required under the Clean Water Act.

Peoria is looking at a hefty tax increase to cover its current deficit (at least $2.5 million) AND to fix the sewage/storm water drainage system ((a mind-numbing $100 million) that dumps raw, disease-causing, human feces* into the Illinois River.

The feds aren’t going to be coughing up any money for this, so lets stop fantasizing about that. It’s our mess, caused by decades of electing politicians who lacked the testicular fortitude to confront the problem or the foresight to see that saying yes to every magic-beans. economic development scheme might not be in the city’s best interests. The feds aren’t going to bail us out, nor should they.

But I have a solution. It’s really so simple, I’m surprised no one hasn’t thought of it before.

Consider the following. The City of Peoria is already in the shopping mall business (it used it’s power to force out widowed homeowners to make room for Mid-Town Plaza), the baseball park business (it forced out long-time successful businesses to make room for O’Brien Field) and health club business (it partnered up with the Peoria Park.

And since the city believes it’s appropriate to engage in these activities best left to the private sector, what’s the harm in entering into yet another field best traditionally left to the private sector.

I am speaking, of course, of architectural design.

It makes perfect sense. Consider the case of Hy-Vee, the company that’s trying to place one of their moderately priced grocery stores into the venerable Sheridan Village shopping center at the corner of West Lake Avenue and North Sheridan.

Hy-Vee submitted its own designs to the city for approval, only to be met with opposition. Neighbors want more walkways. The city of Peoria waned a completely new design that called for, among other things, TWO entrances/exits, one in the back of the store and one in the back. That this would almost require two check-out areas and make it even harder to prevent shoplifting isn’t relevant. Conformity in design is good … at least according to the city.

I couldn’t help but think that if the city is going to micromanage the design of a supermarket — which presumably knows what designs work best — then why not just have the city do all the design work. That way, there’s no chance whatsoever that the design won’t meet whatever the Hell the city’s standards are on that day of the week. This, there won’t be need for pesky revisions.

And it occured to me that we can kill two living things with one stone. What the city ought to do is require all commercial development be designed 100 percent by city staffers. And with a city-mandated monopoly in place, City hall could charge whatever the Hell it wants. The businesses could pass this cost onto consumers, allowing politicians to duck their responsibilities and boars about how they held the line on taxes.

Woo Hoo! Deficit solved.

Well, solved at least until city hall figures out that THIS revenue stream could be tapped for more shopping centers, ball parks and health clubs. But then, no economic development scheme is perfect.

* The diseases caused by human feces probably killed more people during the past 100 years than radiation and toxic chemicals during the same period.

This notice appeared in my inbox moments ago:

Rainfall in the City of Peoria has caused a sewer overflow into the Illinois River recently from one or more locations shown on the map located here.

When this warning is posted, please avoid full-body contact with the Illinois River in the area downstream from Detweiller Marina, as shown on the map. You may get sick if you swallow river water while swimming, Jet Skiing, or water skiing in these areas after a sewer overflow.

The City of Peoria is developing a long-term plan to reduce sewage overflows to the river during wet weather, as required under the Clean Water Act.

So how much of a drenching did we receive cause our antiquated combined stormwater/sewage system to send human feces into the Illinois River? Exactly .58 inches, according to weather.com

From the City of Peoria:

Rainfall in the City of Peoria has caused a sewer overflow into the Illinois River recently from one or more locations shown on the map located here.

When this warning is posted, please avoid full-body contact with the Illinois River in the area downstream from Detweiller Marina, as shown on the map. You may get sick if you swallow river water while swimming, Jet Skiing, or water skiing in these areas after a sewer overflow.

The City of Peoria is developing a long-term plan to reduce sewage overflows to the river during wet weather, as required under the Clean Water Act.