When Sewer Rehab Doesn't Stop Basement Flooding

Rowlett, Thomas; Kelgard, Kenneth; ,

When Sewer Rehab Doesn't Stop Basement Flooding

by Thomas Rowlett, Donohue & Associates, Schaumburg, United States,
Kenneth Kelgard, Donohue & Associates, Schaumburg, United States,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Water Resources Planning and Management: Saving a Threatened Resource?In Search of Solutions

Abstract:

The western half of Wilmette, Illinois, is served by separate sanitary sewers. Constructed in the late 1920's, this separate sewer system was among the first installed in northeastern Illinois. As with most sewer systems of the 1920's, clay sewer pipe with oakum and cement mortar joints predominate. The Village has completed an extensive program of sanitary sewer rehabilitation as mandated by the wastewater collection and treatment agency for the region, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Wilmette's rehabilitation effort was completed under the rules of the District's Infiltration/Inflow Corrective Action Program. This effort touched all parts of the sanitary system and employed traditional types of repair, including: manhole reconstruction, mainline pipe replacement, grouting, sump pump disconnection, downspout disconnection and other common repairs. This sewer rehabilitation program has reduced peak wet weather flow in the separate sewers dramatically, but the reduction has not been enough to completely eliminate basement flooding during major rainfall events. Literally hundreds of basements flooded throughout the Village during heavy rainfalls in 1987 and 1989.

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