DuPage stormwater board member presses staff over $250,000 GIS contract and floodplain‑mapping transition
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Summary
Board member Evans criticized a proposed $250,000 contract to build a custom GIS application meant to support legacy floodplain mapping, arguing staff can extract and reformat data in‑house and urging a transition to HEC‑RAS. Chair Zay and staff said the county is coordinating with the U.S. Army Corps and state partners on a careful transition plan.
Board member Evans sharply questioned the need for a proposed $250,000 contract with Michael Baker International to build a custom GIS application for the county’s regulatory floodplain mapping, saying the work could be done in‑house and that the county should accelerate a move away from legacy modeling tools.
Evans, speaking during old business at the DuPage County Stormwater Management Board meeting on April 7, argued the county already has tools and staff capacity to extract and reformat data. "We can extract our own data using software that we already have," Evans said, citing RASMapper and arguing that staff could write code to format outputs for present models. He urged the board to transition away from legacy FEQ/FAQ mapping and toward more modern HEC‑RAS modeling.
Evans outlined three reasons for his opposition: that the county can perform the required data extraction with existing tools and staff; that the $250,000 contract would "prop up our legacy floodplain mapping programs" that are "no longer supported"; and that the county should take responsibility for a broader modeling and methods transition rather than spending to extend obsolete software. He added that the legacy programs are dated and that the county should plan for a full transition rather than temporary fixes.
Chair Zay replied that transitioning mapping platforms is a large technical undertaking and that his priority as committee chair is protecting homes and businesses and directing limited funds to infrastructure projects. Zay said staff have discussed the matter internally and with outside agencies and that redoing mapping for all county projects would be time‑consuming and costly. He noted the county has used federal ARPA funds for on‑the‑ground infrastructure and that priorities must be set accordingly.
Stormwater staff member Sarah told the board the department has been working since 2024 with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on an FEQ‑to‑HEC transition and that the Corps received approval for such a transition in 2026. Sarah said the Corps and county staff are assessing whether the HEC‑RAS approach can be applied to DuPage County’s gate‑operated facilities and backwater flow regimes. "We have been working very carefully on this," Sarah said, describing coordination with federal and state partners and local experts.
Evans pressed staff about staffing and timeline, saying he worried DuPage was "a little late to the game" on the transition and that there was little mention of floodplain modeling in recent staff reports. Staff responded they are not short‑staffed for this work, that they have expertise in both FEQ and HEC‑RAS on staff, and that they have reached out to local, state and federal partners to support a transition.
The exchange ended with Evans saying he would continue to request updates. Staff said they would circulate a handout summarizing the county’s current posture and next steps; no formal vote was taken on the Michael Baker International contract at this meeting.
What happens next: staff indicated they expect additional meetings with the Army Corps and state partners and will provide further status updates to the committee. The board did not approve a new contract for the custom GIS application at this meeting.
