Some bad karma must be tracking in Gurnee. Residents might want to seek some new mojo and make a run for the border, or at least higher ground if they live near the Des Plaines River.
First, it was learned that the interminable work at the Route 41-Grand Avenue underpass will continue through the upcoming construction season.
Then, it was the discovery of noxious gases floating overhead, emitted from nearby factories.
Now, there is the prospect of rising waters of near-biblical proportions increasing the village’s already roomy Des Plaines floodplain.
Can pestilence and a plague of locusts be far behind?
Village officials learned last week in a report commissioned by the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission that Des Plaines water levels are expected to rise a minimum of two inches to upwards of six inches once the Foxconn Technology Group in Mount Pleasant, Wis., is completed.
Indeed, without improved stormwater retention in Racine County and additional manufacturing plants along the northern Interstate 94 corridor, water levels could even top another 10 inches, according to the report which was highlighted in Jim Newton’s News-Sun report on Wednesday.
News of increased flooding even made normally sunny Mayor Kristina Kovarik shudder. “Two inches we could handle. The six to eight inches worries me,” Kovarik said somberly. Such numbers could eclipse the record flood of July 2017.
With those predictions — along with the increased ferocity of climate-change rainstorms — normally fairly safe areas along the meandering river, not only along its Gurnee banks, could be at extreme peril. That’s because of the Foxconn project site off I- 94 in Mount Pleasant is at the headwaters of the Des Plaines basin.
The watershed — near where Foxconn plans an industrial complex to make LCD screens for TVs, cellphones and tablets, and employ some 13,000 workers — drains south toward Lake County.
Illinois state, county and municipal officials have griped with little avail to Wisconsin since it was announced two years ago about runoff from the project and few plans for on-site water retention.
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Certainly, the dire flood predictions depend on Foxconn’s future plans, which are as fluid as today’s fast-running Des Plaines current. New Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has little faith the Taiwan-based Foxconn will ever hire 13,000 factory workers.
The Democrat told The Associated Press the other day he wants to renegotiate the $3 billion package of incentives the state under former Gov. Scott Walker doled out to lure the project to southeast Wisconsin. Yet, Foxconn officials are adamant they will meet target employment numbers.
Whatever happens to the north of us, Stormwater Commission Executive Director Mike Warner told reporter Newton the ominous report gives county and municipal officials a leg up to begin adopting a strategy on how to confront frequent deluges precipitated from the north.
Planning for the future may be moot, however, if the report last fall by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is correct. That study says we have about a dozen years to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent, a monumental task.
Especially since it was reported last week that Americans used a record amount of energy in 2018, with fossil fuels accounting for 80 percent of our energy usage. Overall, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said it was largest increase in eight years, which doesn’t bode well for that U.N. prediction.
If not, the cataclysmic report says within 20 years catastrophes like cities and farmlands along rivers, along with coastal areas, will see flooding regularly; food supplies will dwindle; ecosystems will be devastated; and storm and related damages will total nearly $55 trillion. That can keep you awake at night, right?
With that scenario, a few inches of water added to the Des Plaines River levels, while not to be ignored, seems dinky. Unless you are Gurnee officials and Foxconn’s plans keep them wary and uneasy.