It appears Riverside residents will, in a couple of weeks, get an explanation of the data irregularities regarding the removal of the Hofmann Dam. That explanation is supposed to come with new charts about water depth and river widths, which should shed some new, more accurate light on what the impact of the dam’s removal will be.
What’s unclear at this point is whether residents will end up liking what they see. They are sure to see something a little less to their liking than what was presented in September 2011, since the numbers on which those projections were made have now changed.
We suspect at this point, however, that even the Army Corps and Illinois Department of Natural Resources doesn’t know exactly how all of this is going to play out once the dam is removed. Their solid info of last September has become just one set of numbers in a series that show that river levels could look normal for part of the year and mighty low for a larger part of the year than initially revealed.
That’s going to make the process of replanting the banks of the river critical. While the exposed mud flats may well self-seed quickly, the federal and state agencies owe it to Riverside to make sure that what’s left when this project is completed is in line with what the village was promised.
