Sediment removal project completed in Aroma Park

Boats have begun launching at the boat ramp on the Kankakee River at Potawatomi Park in Aroma Park after years of having no access.

A sediment removal project by Kankakee County that began in September 2022 was finally completed a couple of weeks ago at the boat launch.

“We’re done,” said Ben Wilson, the county’s transportation and development division manager, at Thursday’s Highways, Waterways and Buildings Committee meeting. “We were out there doing some final measurements, and our team saw there were already trailers and people in the water. So that’s certainly fantastic. On our side, we are completing final pay estimates, … so we’re doing final adjustments and paperwork.”

The project was paid for with a $1 million grant secured from the state of Illinois by state Sen. Patrick Joyce, D-Essex.

Wilson said the contractor, JS McCullough Excavating, of Coatesville, Indiana, removed about 8,300 cubic yards of sand and sediment in front of the boat ramp.

“Obviously the priority there was for public safety, but also for recreation,” Wilson said.

There are still sandbars out in the river, but Wilson said it’s clear where the channel is for boats.

“Most people have on their boats, some sort of technology to show the bottom,” Wilson said. “But even if they don’t, you can pretty clearly see where that channel is. The design that Burke [Engineering] put together was more about a nice narrow channel that’ll keep higher velocities through there.”

Christopher Burke Engineering of Indianapolis was in charge of the design of the project, and it never intended to remove all of the sand.

“That would be a truly monumental cost,” Wilson said. “The idea was you build a designed channel that maintains velocity, doesn’t allow the water to slow, and if the water doesn’t slow, then the sand actually doesn’t deposit in your channel.”

River equipment

County Engineer Greg Heiden reported at the meeting that the county has completed the purchase of all the equipment to maintain the river throughout the county. The equipment was purchased through a $7-million grant secured by Joyce in 2022 for Illinois capital projects.

“I think we’ve got all the bugs worked out of our river equipment,” Heiden said. “We’re ready to schedule a show-and-tell where we can actually show you what this stuff actually does.”

Heiden said the time and place to show all the river equipment will be finalized and announced in the next week or two.

The equipment the county purchased is as follows:

• Remote access aerial crane with tree cutter
• Low boy trailer for excavator
• Semi tractor to pull low boy trailer
• Large towable whole tree chipper
• Hydroseeder
• Excavator with buckets/hydraulic thumb
• Tree sheer attachment for excavator
• Mulching head for excavator

State Line Bridge update

Eric Cavender, county program director, reported at the meeting that the State Line Bridge was supposed to be removed in October, but the work has been pushed back to the spring.

The bridge stands across the Kankakee River on the state line with Indiana about a mile north of Illinois Route 114/Indiana Route 10.

The bridge will be dismantled and moved to another site in Indiana where it will be “reassembled elsewhere for the public’s enjoyment,” according to the Kankakee River Basin and Yellow River Basin Development Commission, based in Valparaiso, Indiana.

Cavender said that the delay is due to some permits that have not been granted yet.

“That bridge is actually going to be relocated to a park, and there will be a memorial site [in Indiana] for the community,” he said.

The bridge is deemed “a direct impediment to effective flood mitigation, magnet for logjams and heavy debris accumulation during flood events, and a persistent barrier to navigation and safe movement,” wrote Beth McCord, deputy state historic preservation officer to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in a commission newsletter.

The Kankakee River Basin and Yellow River Basin Development Commission has allocated money for its removal.