text: Rains slow construction of trail - Chicago Tribune
  Rains slow construction of trail
  Construction of a bike trail along the Des Plaines River, planned as part of a major flood-control project, has been delayed by the heavy rains this spring and flooding last summer, officials said Friday.
  The levee that is the centerpiece of the project has been completed, but the work also was to include a new bike path that would connect the north and south Des Plaines River Trails. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the trail, which would run north of Miner Street just east of downtown Des Plaines, had been planned for this month.
  "That's not been completed because of the various high-water elevations last year and this spring -- and today, in fact," Timothy Oakley, Des Plaines director of engineering, said Friday.
  The bike trail was included in plans for the $15 million Levee 50, part of a series of projects first envisioned after the disastrous Des Plaines River floods in the mid-1980s. Legal issues and wrangling over funding have delayed work on other major pieces of a flood-control plan recommended by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1990.
  But when officials were drawing up the early plans for Levee 50, they realized they could add an underpass and a culvert that would close a half-mile gap in the 50-mile Des Plaines River bike and hiking trail that passes through parts of Cook and Lake Counties.
  When completed later this year, a pathway next to a culvert under Miner Street, where it crosses the river, and a new path along the river will connect the north and south trails, officials said.
  Park Ridge and Des Plaines are splitting a $2 million contribution to the cost of the larger project, with Des Plaines paying about $1.3 million.
  "I am just glad to see that it's happening, both in terms of flood control and making the connection on the Des Plaines River," said Lowell Nelson, a Park Ridge bicyclist who runs an Internet message board on biking in the northwest suburbs.
  When officials first announced a delay in the ribbon-cutting, some held out hope that the project might be completed in June. But it appears the new trail won't be ready until September, Oakley said.
  The levee and flood wall that form the backbone of the work, as well as floodgates and a pumping station on nearby Farmers Creek, already have helped hold off floods last year and this spring in Des Plaines and Park Ridge, said Loren Wobig, project manager on the work for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.