Water works: Bethalto looks to nature to fix flooding woes Bethalto looks to nature to fix flooding woes

Scott Cousins/The Telegraph An egret perches on a dead limb in standing water along the Berm Highway Tuesday morning while more egrets perch on nearby trees. High water along the river has made it a likely place to spot various waterfowl and other birds in recent weeks. less Scott Cousins/The Telegraph An egret perches on a dead limb in standing water along the Berm Highway Tuesday morning while more egrets perch on nearby trees. High water along the river has made it a likely ... more Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Water works: Bethalto looks to nature to fix flooding woes 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

BETHALTO — Two massive rainfalls during over past year caused a Bethalto creek to overflow, damaging local residences and sending village officials scrambling for a solution.

Now, according to Mayor Alan Winslow, they may have found one. In a speech given before area leaders Thursday at a meeting of the RiverBend Growth Association, Winslow described the village’s new concept for a storm water control system. The idea is to use landscaping and native vegetation — as compared to the more industrial and less nature-friendly techniques commonly employed — to keep the stream in its banks.

By using natural methods to control flooding, Winslow added, a useful corridor would be created. He envisions it one day supporting a path for pedestrians and joggers.

“(We are) taking a huge problem in the village, turning it upside down, and making it a huge asset for the village,” Winslow said. “So what we’re looking at doing here is instead of trying to rush this water down and get it out of here, and have the risk of backups, let’s just slow it down.”

A smaller but similar project at Lewis and Clark Community College inspired the idea. According to Winslow, the landscaped area there had the quality of a park. College officials have reached out to the village to share the expertise they have acquired.

The project would consist of three essential elements. First, a holding pond would be created upstream from residences which have been impacted, allowing sudden runoff to accumulate and then be slowly released.

The basin would then be seeded with native plants, increasing the soil’s ability to take on water.

“The thought is that with the native plants that have roots that go down 12 to 15 feet,” Winslow said, “you have created a straw effect of drawing water down not just from the surface but way down into substrata, and eventually returning it to the original aquifer.”

The stream itself would then be “terraced.”

“What this is is a series of small dams,” Winslow said. “They’re only 1 to 1.5 feet tall, and as the water hits it slows the run down, it backs it up to a pooling area, again filled with the natural plants. Once that area fills, it spills over the dam, goes downstream a couple hundred yards, hits another one, there again slows it down.

“It’s just a stair-step situation every couple of hundred yards,” he added.

A second holding pond might be put into place further downstream.

Winslow says the project — whether as proposed, or using a different solution — has become urgent due to changing weather patterns in the region. While average rainfall has not increased, severe downpours are becoming much more common. In the past year, two rain events — a December 2015 system which caused regionwide flooding, and a July 2016 storm which impacted only the immediate Bethalto area — were classified as 100- and 500-year floods, respectively.

“The problem is, we are seeing flooding on a 100-year level almost every year now,” he said.

“We have got to deal with this, and we have got to deal with it quickly,” he added.

Prior to learning of Lewis and Clark’s project, the village had looked at simply cutting all vegetation near the stream, channelizing it with machines and putting riprap on the banks.

“We are really intrigued by this from the standpoint of, instead of just having a big, rock-lined ditch running right through the middle of residential area, that we have an area that actually… could enhance our park system,” Winslow said.

The only hurdle keeping the project back might be the price tag. Winslow, however, believes costs for the landscaping approach will be similar, and perhaps less than, the riprap method. He does expect some additional engineering costs.

“I’ve bought into this,” he said. “I think it just is a great project.

“(I think it will) create a wonderful asset people can actually enjoy.”

Reach Alex Heeb at 618-208-6451 or on Twitter @alexheebs