Lake Zurich, Ill., trustees approved an agreement with Ciorba Group Consulting Engineers in the amount of $126,221 for Phase I analysis for noise mitigation measures along the Elgin, Eastern and Joliet Railroad at Monday's meeting, Pioneer Press reports.

Phase I will be funded by the $1.9 million mitigation fund, paid for by Canadian National Railway, owner of the EJ&E. The funds given to Lake Zurich by CN were determined based on the U.S. Surface Transportation Board's Environment Impact Statement, which was conducted prior to the federal board's approval of CN's purchase of the EJ&E, according to Lake Zurich Building Director Dan Peterson.

The Chicago-based Ciorba Group will have to get liability insurance and a set of flaggers in order to begin the survey work. Lake Zurich Public Works Director and Village Engineer David Heyden said he expects Ciorba engineers to begin survey work in September. After the topography survey results are gathered, scenarios will be developed and brought before the homeowner's groups effected by the train noise.

"The people we really want to focus on are the people that are right at the track," Heyden said. "They're going to have to look at this thing and deal with this thing in their backyard on a daily basis."

A meeting between the village board and the seven-to-eight effected homeowner's groups is expected to take place in October. The groups will be presented with different ways noise can be mitigated such as putting up a wall or using landscaping.

"One of the major goals of this consult is to develop different scenarios to show these different groups what type of things can be placed there and what kind of noise reduction they can see," Heyden said.

After the homeowner's groups see the scenarios they'll meet on their own to discuss which option they want implemented. Heyden was hopeful to get focused ideas of what the groups want to see in the different locations by November.

Following that schedule, a final design could be drawn up in late winter or early spring with construction beginning in fall 2011. CN's increase of freight train traffic on the EJ&E have yet to hit their projected levels due to economic conditions, Heyden said. They're not moving as many goods and services as they thought they were going to be so the actual volumes of trains have basically remained constant, he said.

Track improvement projects on the north and south ends of the railroad to connect other CN lines to the EJ&E are currently being worked on and are scheduled to be completed next year.

"That's when we really expect to see train volume increase. Probably in the fall of 2011. We're trying to get all our mitigation in place before those increase in trains occur," Heyden said.

After settling on a final plan, Phase II will consist of putting together a bid document for construction and Phase III will be the construction phase.