Focus on the floodwall

Riverside’s lengthy, meandering quest to build a floodwall along Groveland Avenue to hold back the occasionally mighty Des Plaines River continues. The price keeps rising in million-dollar leaps as the years pass, but a determined village hall keeps finding new pots of money to tap to keep the local cost of this essential project in range.

While the total cost of the project has now risen to $18 million, the village thinks it can lock in the direct cost to Riverside taxpayers at about $2 million. That might happen after it secured nearly $1 million in new federal funds through the efforts of Rep. Chuy Garcia.