HR Green and the Village of Lake in the Hills, Illinois won a Merit Award in ACEC Illinois’ 2021 Engineering Excellence Award Competition for the Woods Creek Restoration project.

The Woods Creek Restoration Project is located on property owned by the Village of Lake in the Hills, near Ken Carpenter Park. The project area is adjacent to a paved trail system and bounded on the north and south by residential subdivisions.

The Woods Creek Watershed-Based Plan (WCWBP) identified this project location as a critical area for improvements and recommended it as one of the highest-ranking implementation projects in the WCWBP for streambank and channel restoration and riparian area restoration and maintenance.

The project stabilized the Creek, improved adjacent wetlands to their natural state, reduced amount of silt and sediment being transported into the lake and therefore reducing the frequency of dredging required and improving overall water quality for the region.