Culvert Replacement on Dennis Road

Some of the homes served by Dennis Road.

There’s a community nestled between Algonquin Road and the hill in Algonquin to its south that had an access road of three culverts.

The hole through which creek water avoided the culverts was visible from the street.

Over time creek waters managed to scourer dirt from around the culverts.

The creek escaped the culverts thru this tunnel.

Eventually, the asphalt road was in danger of  collapsing.

The three culverts look OK, but they were not protected from the flowing creek.

This was not after the most recent deluge, but the one before.

Culverts on the upstream side of Dennis Road.

It’s an Algonquin Township Road, so the duty to fix it fell to newly-elected Road Commissioner Andrew Gasser.

The hoses go under the wooden approaches to the temporary steel bridge.

I took a look at the Dennis Road.

As I approached  a Waste Management man was walking up toward the temporary bridge to bring garbage back to his truck.

The garbage containers were on this side of the Algonquin Road side of the damaged bridge.

The engineer told me that, when completed, concrete will hold the culverts in place and keep water from going around them.

Three big hoses suck up the creek water.

During construction, heavy duty pumps direct the creek through hoses approximately a foot in diameter.

Pumps pulling the water out of the stream and over the road.

You can see how heavy duty the pumps are.

The water is discharged downstream.

In the meantime, the creek is diverted over the roadway.

OK fishermen. Tell us what kind of fish this is.

While I was there a small fish was found that could not get downstream.

The man who found the little fish took it downstream.

One of the men picked it up and carried it over the obstruction.

Commonwealth Edison-constructed bridge.

Contractor Rabine Paving discovered that Commonwealth Edison had built a temporary bridge that now crosses the stream.

The work is estimated to be completed by August 1st.


Comments

Culvert Replacement on Dennis Road — 15 Comments

  1. Interesting to see how an emergency re-routing of water was able to prevent a very expensive repair.

    Great job everyone and thanks Cal for the great photos.

    My guess is that fish is a bass.

  2. It’s a little hard to tell from the picture if the little blue dot is on the gill plate or behind it.

    It appears to be behind it, so that appears to be a Bluegill.

    If the dot was on the gill tip it would be a Smallmouth.

  3. That’s not a bluegill, Nob. They are much rounder, and the coloration is different.

    It’s definitely some sort of bass.

    Largemouths and smallmouths look kind of similar when they are small.

    The easiest way to tell is by how far their jaw goes back when their mouth is closed – if it goes back past the middle of the eye, it’s a largemouth.

    Since it was caught in a stream, my guess would be smallmouth.

  4. This is how stupid nob is. The body shape is more like a perch than a bluegill. Why not call it a perch, nob? Bluegill are flat. I’m not a fisherman; but I have caught a lot of bluegill and perch in my day. I liked the fight they put up.

  5. Keystone Hatcheries in Richmond might respond to an email inquiry regarding the fish species.

    Small fish are more difficult to identify than big fish.

    Plus males and females sometimes have different markings.

    Best guess is a smallmouth bass based on the body shape, color, fins, and vertical stripes.

  6. Geez It’s a smallie……

    or A small mouth bass for you laymen……………

    Im gals we got that solved

  7. Cal go find that fish and take a better picture so we can tell for sure where the blue dot is or if it was just because of the lighting it looks blue in your picture.

    The world is holding their breaths as it could be war as elephants don’t forget or forgive.

  8. I sure wish the Commissioner and Rabine Paving were as worried about the stranded residents of the Dennis Av disaster as they were the fish that was stranded.

  9. So we are part of this lovely blog but have been banned from the Algonquin township highway page.

    This is effort is effecting us.

    This man is costing the tax payers of Algonquin so much money

  10. Completed by Aug 1st…..promises promises, this is a nightmare.

    Check out the Algonquin Township Highway Dept Facebook page..Gasser blocks the community so he can make videos full of lies and posts them.

    It is absolutely sickening

  11. The August 1st estimate was offered by the engineer on the job before the deluge.

    Obviously work cannot begin on fixing the bridge until water can be diverted from the stream bed.

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