Public Works Director: Paul Kuester

Street Maintenance

Street Maintenance is the largest of the three divisions of Public Works. It is responsible for maintaining the Village right-of-ways and most other Village properties, including the cemetery and commuter parking lots. Some Street Maintenance activities include street patching and paving, snow plowing and salting, parkway tree trimming, brush pick-up, street light maintenance and installation, roadway sign installation, tree planting, street sweeping, grass and weed cutting, street striping, landscaping, “JULIE” underground locating, maintenance of the storm sewer system, ponds, creeks, and rivers. Less visible activities include vehicle and equipment maintenance, sidewalk, bike path, and curb repairs, as well as subdivision inspections.

Water
Water is one of the three major divisions of Public Works. Water personnel are responsible for maintaining the entire water system, including seven wells, five elevated storage towers, two ground storage reservoirs, and a pump station for water purchased from the City of Elgin.

Bartlett pumps an average of 3.90 MGD (million gallons per day) into the water distribution system, with 2.0 MGD of that coming from Elgin. The distribution system consists of approximately 292 miles of transmission mains, 2,280 fire hydrants, and 2,390 isolation valves. There are approximately 13,335 service connections which are metered and billed monthly.
The Village has replaced all of its water meters with drive-by radio-read meters, and it collects a read every month.

Water personnel are involved in maintaining the pump stations, water treatment, maintenance of fire hydrants, b-boxes and valves, building and grounds maintenance, water sampling, meter installation and repair, customer service, and meter reading.

Sewer
The Sewer Division is one of the three major divisions of the Public Works Department. The Sewer Division consists of the main water reclamation plant located on Bittersweet Drive and approximately 150 miles of sanitary sewers. The Sewer Division is staffed by 12 employees who maintain the sewers, 20 sewage lift stations, and two excess flow facilities, as well as managing the water reclamation plant process and the associated equipment. The reclamation plant is able to treat approximately 3.679 million gallons per day (MGD), with a peak flow rate of 5.151 MGD. The current average daily flow is about 2.2 MGD. The excess flow facilities treat flows in excess of the 5.151 MGD. The water reclamation plant and the two excess flow facilities are permitted discharges with water quality limitations. Permits are issued by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). The treated effluent from the reclamation plant continually meets the imposed permit limits. The treated organic matter in the sewage is biologically stabilized and hauled away by a private contractor and used as a soil amendment on farmland.

Public Works News & Highlights

Snowy Weather Ahead?
The AccuWeather.com Long-Range Forecasting Team is predicting that the Chicago snowy Oak Avenue area, which “endured a monster blizzard last winter, could be one of the hardest-hit cities in terms of both snow and cold in the winter ahead.” But Public Works salt trucks and snowplows are ready.

Bartlett streets are plowed in the following order: main streets, secondary collector streets, cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets. Priority is given to the most heavily traveled streets.

Parking on Village streets is prohibited after 2 inches of snow has fallen to allow plows to remove snow and completely clear the street. It’s a good idea to wait until after the final pass of the plow to shovel the end of your driveway.

Please DO NOT shovel snow into the street. This can cause the formation of ice patches and can potentially result in serious accidents.

The Village clears snow from sidewalks surrounding public buildings and the commuter areas it maintains. The Village does not clear neighborhood walks.

Please be a snow angel and shovel your sidewalk, so school children and other pedestrians in your neighborhood can walk with greater ease and safety. Also, please clear snow from around fire hydrants and storm sewers. If you have any questions or concerns regarding snow removal, please call the Public Works Department, 630-837-0811.

You Should Know

Brush Collection
The Village of Bartlett has a Brush Pick-up program that runs from April through November.

Burned Out Street Light
If you notice a burned out street light please note its location and call the Bartlett Public Works Department at 837-0811 or use our online form to contact Public Works.

Snow Removal
Bartlett streets are plowed in the following order: main streets, secondary collector streets, cul-de-sacs and dead-end streets. Priority is given to the most heavily traveled streets. It’s a good idea to wait until after the final pass of the plow to shovel the end of your driveway.

Annual Water Quality Report

By law the Village of Bartlett must provide information to its residents regarding water quality. Bartlett's annual Water Quality Report delivered to residential households each summer meets the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) requirements for “Consumer Confidence Reports” and contains information on the source of Bartlett’s water, its constituents and the health risks associated with any contaminants. Safe water is vital to the community and the Village tests and monitors its water quality on a continual basis. Please read this report carefully.

Emerald Ash Borer
On July 19, 2007 the State of Illinois Department of Agriculture quarantined both Cook and DuPage Counties in relation to the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB). At that time the borer had not yet been found in Bartlett.

Since the emergence of the emerald ash borer in the region, Village staff has been monitoring the response options available. Coincidentally, as part of Bartlett's parkway tree diversity program, it has not included any ash trees in its 50/50 tree program since 2002. It has also been the practice of Public Works to remove ash trees that have been damaged. When the department finds an ash tree that is infested with the EAB, that tree is scheduled for removal. The tree is replaced, if possible, with other tree species, often through the 50/50 tree program. So far the Village has removed 112 ash trees.

According to the Village of Bartlett parkway tree inventory, there are approximately 5,600 ash trees planted in the parkway throughout Bartlett, which is roughly 38% of all the parkway trees. The inventory also shows the areas throughout the town that have high concentrations of ash trees in the parkway. After onsite inspections, staff believes that approximately 20 to 40% (1,120 to 2,240 trees) of the ash trees are already infested with the emerald ash borer (EAB).

The options under review to respond to the EAB infestation are treatment or removal and replacement of the tree. There are many factors to consider in making that decision, including cost, the health of the tree, the level of infestation, the size of the tree, and the density of the ash tree species in the neighborhood. Public Works is in the process of evaluating the ash trees on the parkways to determine which are best suited for treatment and which would be candidates for removal.