$550K rejuvenation project breaks ground in Yorkville park

Along the creek bank in Fox Hill Park, dirt was hauled in and trees planted continuing Yorkville’s rejuvenation efforts, as part of a $500,000 drainage system project.

To mitigate flooding in neighborhoods along Rob Roy Creek, the project was born out of a partnership between the City of Yorkville and the Rob Roy Drainage District, an independent government body maintaining the drainage infrastructure. The collaboration follows a legal battle between the two over taxation authority for the area developments and drainage district connections.

The complete Rob Roy Creek drainage ditch spans about four miles from Fox Hill Park up through the north-end of town along Baseline Road. The seeping water picks up speed as the ditch deepens into a creek before spilling into the Fox River.

The long-planned project finally received the funding it needed in the form of a federal American Rescue Plan Act grant, and COVID-19 pandemic funds designed to provide stimulus to local governments. The grant was disbursed by the Kendall County Board in 2023.

Eric Dhuse, Yorkville’s public works director, said the area’s significant increase in housing and industrial development resulted in most of the drainage districts going dormant around two decades ago. He said now that the funds were made available and the area has been largely developed, they could focus on improving the efficiency of the drainage systems.

“If you drive 20 miles from town, you will see large drainage ditches running through fields for miles and miles,” Dhuse said. “That’s exactly what this area is, it’s just that our community happened to grow up around this drainage ditch.”

To help maximize the drainage abilities, the project team is adding new draining outlets and tiles to ensure all the connections are efficiently flowing into the ditch with steady flow to the river.

Dhuse said while many trees needed to be removed to prevent clogging in the ditch, the parks department has turned the construction in Fox Hill Park into an opportunity to improve the ecosystem’s landscape.

“Many of the trees were lower quality trees, and over half of them, according to the people that cut them down, were dead, dying or diseased,” Dhuse said. “They were falling into the creek and blocking up the drainage ditch. By planting new trees, seeding and doing soils in the park, the parks department is trying to reclaim that land for park use and keep it up to a little higher standard than the rest of the ditch.”

These actions follow the parks department recently removing lower-quality trees, like Buckthorn and diseased Ash trees, in Riverfront Park and planting more than 40 native trees to improve the health of the ecosystem with a greater diversity of species.

Dhuse said the overall Rob Roy drainage project is expected to be completed by the end of next spring. He said the next steps are continuing to smooth out areas along the bank where trees were removed and testing new outlets and drain tiles once they are in place to make sure the area’s fields are draining at their maximum potential.

The project team is looking to hire a company in the upcoming months to test all the drainage connections and to see what else can be installed to fully update the area’s complete drainage system.