Wednesday night the Crystal Lake Public Works Department dug a ditch through the lot it owns between North Shore Drive and Crystal Lake, the lake.
The ditch was designed to drain water from North Shore Drive, which has been as high as 8 or 9 inches this very rainy week.
But, the slope from North Shore Drive to the lake was so slight that the ditch idea didn’t work.
So, on Thursday morning, about a six inch hose was run Parallel to the ditch from the area to be drained near North Shore Drive to Crystal Lake.
A pump was used to greatly accelerate the flow of water into the lake.
I don’t know how long the pump had been working when I arrived, but the flow was significant.
Consultant Gary Schaefer, who advises both the city and park district on matters watershed, pointed out that the quantity and quality of the flow of water to Crystal Lake would improve if McHenry County College were granted permission to build its baseball stadium and cover 50% of its watershed property.
He said that the water would just flow through Crystal Lake faster.
Well, it is flowing pretty fast through the lake to Cress Creek right now.
You can see from the photos that the flow is up substantially from this spring.
But, the water is not nearly as clear as it was on March 22nd.
The combination of the rain run-off from the watershed and the pumping has the lake as high as I have ever seen it and the water is running over the little dam into Cress Creek as fast as I have ever seen it.
So, Crystal Lake can handle the quantity.
The question now seems to come down to quality.
= = = = =
In the top photo you can see not only the hose, but a metal protective device around the storm sewer outlet–something like a window well, in fact, it may be a large window well. The water is calmer inside the well. I was told it was installed to keep debris from Crystal Lake from clogging up the storm sewer.
The next photo is of the pump and the beginning of the drainage ditch and, now, hose.
Below right is the hose snaking to the lake. Note that there is little water in the ditch.
Near the bottom are two shots of the little dam over which excess water flows out of Crystal Lake into Cress Creek. The one on top is from Thursday. The one below is from July 22, 2007.
At the bottom this photo explanation section, is a picture of the hose running north from the culverts toward North Shore Drive.
North Shore update.. Public Works finally figured it out. On Friday afternoon maintenance was finally preformed to the gravel filter in front of the drainage pipe exiting “Crystal Cove Pond”. This gravel was clogged with algae and plant growth. Now the water is draining at record pace into Crystal Lake. Makes you wonder how well this system would have worked if it was properly maintained prior to this storm. And who is it that is going to maintain or even supervise and inspect the proposed stadium system?? “Its not what you expect, it’s what you inspect”!!!