Water Table Changes?

[Butch627]

There is an area that I have been driving by since the early 1970's. It is right on State Line Road between Ill and Ind at about 121st Avenue. It is probably unincorporated Dyer in Lake County. About 7 years ago a small part of a corn field seemed to keep water much longer than it used to after heavy rains. About a quarter of a mile away on the Illinois side the yard surrounding a prefab house built on a slab turned into about a 1 acre marsh. The area on the Indiana side in the cornfield gradually kept getting larger and has flooded 121st ave for most of the last year. It has now turned into about a 3 acre pond. The county came out a couple of weeks ago and dumped gravel on the road raising it about 2ft for about 300ft in length. There is now water on both sides of the road and it is starting to encroach in the yard on a house just to the south side of the street. The nearest subdivision is about a half mile away. I haven't noticed any other changes in the topography.

How common is it for something like this to happen? Do the land owners just have to sit back and watch this happen?

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

What most likely happened is that the land in question was originally poorly drained. Then, maybe back as far as the 1930's or 1940's, a farmer put in tiles to drain the land to make it easier to farm. The army corp may have even helped put in drainage ditches.

Then, many years later, the drain tiles either broke down or filled with silt and the land returned to it's original condition. Many acres of land were drained, especially in areas like in northwestern Indiana, where the grand Kankakee swamp was. The Kankakee originally encompassed a huge part of northwestern Indiana before most of it was drained for farming.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Hope they get it drained before it comes to the attention of the EPA and declared a wetland, then they'll have to ask permission to blow their noses.

 

[1911ly]

Mother nature's way of saying "I want it back" If I remember correctly a lot of land in that area was reclaimed marsh lands. And as BBJ said, it was probably poorly done.