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New program grates on Deerfield residents

Deerfield residents will soon get to claim a small piece of the village as their own and help neighbors in the process.

The village’s “Grate Keepers” program, which will start throughout the community this month, allows people to select one of the many stormsewer grates to maintain and help to prevent flooding by removing leaves or trash within a 10-foot radius.

“They will be the gatekeepers to our storm sewer system,” said David Fitzgerald-Sullivan, the village’s management analyst who is overseeing the program. “We’ve always asked people to make sure the area is clear, but now we’re taking it a step further. People will commit to be responsible and we will provide the tools and information how to do it safely.”

Fitzgerald-Sullivan said those interested soon will be able to go to the village’s website, click on a link and see a map showing every grate in town. They enter their address and can get a closer view of the grates in their neighborhood.

Once a person sees the grate he or she wants to claim, Fitzgerald-Sullivan said the village provides the necessary information and the arrangement becomes official.

“They get to name it,” he said. “They can call it anything from the Smith Family Grate to Alexander the Grate. Once you claim it, you can name it.”

Though Fitzgerald-Sullivan said he does not have a precise date when the map will become active on the village’s website, it will be before the start of Deerfield’s leaf collection program, which begins the week of Oct 21.

An email from a resident who saw multiple sewer grates clogged with leaves after a storm inspired the program. The communication suggested residents do more to assist. Fitzgerald-Sullivan said village staff got to work to craft the effort.

The resident, Joan Reed, said not only does she intend to participate, but already has a name selected for the grate she will claim — the Great Barrier Reed.

“I’m doing this because I can,” she said. “I want to be proactive and this sounds like a lot of fun. It makes me feel good. It’s part of being a good neighbor and part of the community.”

Once the idea started percolating, Fitzgerald-Sullivan said he and some of his colleagues refined it. They checked with other communities around the country with the only one in the Chicago area with a similar effort was Naperville.

Bob Phillips, Deerfield’s director of public works and engineering, said the program will help prevent flooding and provide relief to village personnel who are taxed after storms or when the leaves fall.

“We have limited staff,” Phillips said. “It’s great to have people doing this so we can concentrate on other areas. Keeping the storm sewers clear means it is less likely there will be flooding.”

Fitzgerald-Sullivan said the village will send email reminders to residents about important times to make sure the grates are clear. They include March when ice and snow start to melt, creating more water flow on the streets. It is also important in April with its heavy rains, summer when people start mowing lawns, and October when leaves fall.

If organic waste and garbage flow into the storm system, the quality of stormwater is affected locally and all the way to the Gulf of Mexico since the Chicago River empties there.

“The organic waste provides food for algae which can mess up water quality,” Fitzgerald-Sullivan said.