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In the early 1980s, the Butterfield Creek watershed experienced several large floods that filled the creek and local government board rooms to overflowing. Pressure to end flooding led to the formation of a watershed group whose initial plan was to get state and federal assistance to dam, divert, or detain the storm-water. The ensuing decade has taught us many lessons in the complex world of stormwater management. We began with a hope that somebody else would provide a quick fix and lots of money. Our reality has been a process of self-help and intergovernmental cooperation with very little funding. Our story is a series of multis — multi-community, multi-agency, multi-objective — we believe that it could be copied anywhere.
The Butterfield Creek watershed is a 26-square-mile area about 30 miles south of Chicago, composed of seven communities. Of that area, 60 percent has typical suburban development, and 23 percent is still agricultural. Historically, the creek was hidden in a wide, prairie wetland with a slowly moving, meandering swale for much of its length. As farmers settled, they placed farm tiles, drained the land, and channelized the waters. Urbanization followed, and the creek became over time simply a path to move water away. The combination of increased runoff, draining and filling of natural storage areas, and unwise development in floodplains resulted in today's serious flooding problems. Portions of the waterway have come to look like a "stream on drugs."
Seeking Simple Solutions
The Butterfield Creek Steering Committee (BCSC), representing the seven watershed communities and Cook County, was formed in 1983. Its first action was to ask state and federal agencies to stop the floods. The U.S. Soil Conservation Service (SCS) and the Illinois Department of Transportation's Division of Water Resources (DWR) provided the first interagency cooperative response by studying the flooding and flood damages. The communities, expecting structural solutions, waited for someone else to solve their problems.
In April 1987, SCS engineer Bob Bartels gave the BCSC preliminary results of the watershed study. The results were disappointing: The substantial flow-related damages along the creek did not justify the cost of the structural solutions necessary to reduce flooding. The benefit/cost ratio for upstream structures did not meet federal or state standards. There would be no infusion of money and no easy answers.
But the SCS study did relate three important facts. First, the flood insurance maps were inaccurate. Our recalculated 100-year flood levels are higher in some locations by as much as 2.5 feet. Second, detention standards in force in several communities were inadequate to prevent increases in downstream flooding. Finally, if significant areas of natural storage upstream were to be removed, flood damages in our watershed would rise by half.
Tackling the Complex
Recognizing their vulnerability, downstream communities requested the cooperation of all the watershed towns to prevent worse flooding. Fortunately, all agreed to continue the watershed committee efforts. They understood that they were all connected by the watershed and hoped to find opportunities to benefit each other.
Staffing the BCSC was an immediate problem. The Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC), a six-county regional planning agency provided basic help with agendas, mailings, and minute taking. Because of its interest in regional planning and its recent efforts to improve floodplain ordinances, NIPC also provided engineering assistance, DWR, which had helped to fund the watershed study and was promulgating new regulations for floodplains, provided a liaison to the BCSC. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the SCS, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) all agreed to provide future assistance for specific needs.
Goal Setting
Goal setting was the point at which the committee first concluded that flooding problems and environmental concerns were inextricably connected. The committee set the following multi-objective goals:
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source benefits, and to improve the environment within communities and neighborhoods.
The BCSC's next step was to create a model storm-water management code. A recent state statute mandated new floodplain regulations, creating an opportune time to review ordinances and tackle some of the issues raised by the SCS study. The BCSC decided its code would address all stormwater management issues in a comprehensive document. After many months of editing and review, the Butterfield Creek Model Floodplain and Stormwater Management Code was published in November 1990. Here are some highlights:
— The capacity of natural storage areas must be maintained. Because portions of these areas are outside wetlands and floodplains, they were previously unregulated. Now any construction on these properties will require compensatory storage to make up for lost natural storage in addition to the usual detention requirements.— Detention requirements have been strengthened to match real-world conditions. Release rates must meet 100-year storm limits of 0.15 cubic feet per second (CFS) per acre and two-year storm limits of 0.04 CFS per acre. The two-year requirement seeks to stabilize runoff rates to prevent increased erosion of downstream channels.
— Regulatory floodplains have been expanded to coincide with those in the SCS study.
— 75-foot setbacks and 25-foot vegetated buffer strips are required for new development along streams.
Five'of the seven communities have adopted the model code. The others are considering the recommendations.
With stronger regulations adopted by most of the watershed and by all of the upstream communities, residents threatened by floods have been given some insurance. We have not eliminated flooding, but it should not worsen if the codes are enforced.
A Plan for Action
The BCSC then began to shape an action plan that entwined the twin goals of mitigating flood hazards and protecting the watershed environment. Already we have accomplished the following:
— Because of our united effort, we were able to obtain a state grant of $250,000 to begin to meet our hazard mitigation goals. Utilizing these dol-
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lars, we are exploring the possibility of purchase of upstream storage areas. Public ownership would assure preservation of natural storage and could satisfy other objectives such as habitat restoration, open space preservation, and passive recreation.— We have obtained USEPA funding to implement two detention basin demonstration projects, one to retrofit an existing detention basin to improve removal of runoff pollutants and to control erosion-causing storm flows, and the second to control runoff pollution from a new commercial development using an innovative wetland "bio-filter." NIPC is managing both these projects in cooperation with member communities.
— We began a stream erosion control project using a small grant from the Department of Conservation. This demonstration project uses vegetative materials for streambank stabilization in an urban setting. If successful, this will show property owners how to create an aesthetically pleasing landscape that also prevents their property from being washed away by floodwaters.
— We cosponsored a floodproofing workshop that attracted nearly 300 people. Partly, as a result of this experience, the Illinois Association of Floodplain and Stormwater Management has created a handbook on how to organize a floodproofing open house.
— We created a 15-minute video that has aired on local cable channels and is the beginning of efforts to educate residents of the watershed.
— We conducted a planning charette where representatives of state and federal agencies met with community representatives to "brainstorm" for future cooperative efforts. The charette has resulted in a proposal to create a land plan for the Butterfield Corridor. This has become the Committee's next major project.
Butterfield as a Model
Four universally applicable lessons emerge from the Butterfield experience. The first is that streams do not respect geographic or political boundaries. Stormwater management must have the cooperation of all watershed communities in order to solve problems. A united effort makes it much easier to get outside help.
Second, help is available. State and federal agencies often receive criticism because of their regulatory responsibility; in fact, they provide knowledgeable and dedicated people who really want to help. They cannot
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do all things, but if the local governments are willing to work with what is possible, they can accomplish a great deal.
Third, it is important to know what can be done and what can't be done. Our watershed had to accept that there would be no quick fix for flooding problems. We were going to have to help ourselves, and significant results for our stream and our residents would take years of hard work.
Finally, efforts to manage stormwater also provide an opportunity to protect the environment and provide recreation, but these efforts must be viewed in a holistic way in order to take advantage of the opportunities. A multi-objective approach is critical.
Butterfield Creek, like all streams, bears the watershed's imprint in such a way that every activity on the land is registereed in its waters. Flooding, erosion, and environmental degradation are the creek's reaction to poor watershed planning. The Butterfield Committee hopes that its waters will one day bear the positive imprint of the improved planning we have attempted to provide.
Prepared by Peggy A. Glassford, Village Manager, Village of Flossmoor, with technical assistance from Dennis Dreher, Director of Natural Resources, Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission.
A new report by the National League of Cities describes dozens of ways that American cities and towns are making themselves more visible, better prepared and more involved in the growing global economy.
Global Dollars, Local Sense, published as the findings of a year-long "futures" study by a panel of NLC's senior leaders, looks at what local governments can do, and are doing, to develop new business and trade opportunities with foreign markets.
"America's cities and towns, in order to prosper in the 21st century, will have to improve their capacity to deal successfully with new international contexts," the report says. "The most successful will be closely connected to the rest of the world — through trade, transportation, technology, education, arts and culture."
The 28-page report is designed as a resource to provide local government leaders with an overview of ways that various communities have begun to develop new markets and business opportunities around the world. The eight case studies and 26 examples cited in the report include contacts for additional information.
Along with describing what communities are doing, the report suggests a process of inclusive, outward-looking strategies to help guide local initiatives in virtually any community, regardless of size, location or economic characteristics.
It describes how cities and towns have created an international presence for themselves by taking actions to focus on resource strengths, develop plans, seek intergovernmental and public-private partnerships, enhance education and training programs, build upon the cultural diversity within the community, and to "internationalize" city hall.
The 1993 NLC Futures Report, Global Dollars, Local Sense: Cities and Towns in the International Economy, was prepared by the NLC Advisory Council, a 47-member panel of municipal government officials chaired by Mayor Hal Conklin of Santa Barbara, Calif.
Copies of the report are available from the NLC Publications Center (301) 725-4299. The price is $5 for NLC members and $10 for others, plus $3 for shipping and handling.
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