There’s a new trend in how states with air quality problems carry out
vehicle emissions testing. Some say it will allow cars that give off
harmful pollutants to stay on the road. The Great Lake’s Radio Consortium’s
Amanda Vinicky reports:
Transcript
There’s a new trend in how states with air quality problems carry out vehicle emissions testing. Some say it will allow cars that give off harmful pollutants to stay on the road. The Great Lake’s Radio Consortium’s Amanda Vinicky reports:
States that are required to test emissions usually test a car’s tailpipe. Illinois is switching to “onboard diagnostics.” That means the vehicle’s onboard computer gives testers all the information they need.
But older cars don’t have computers, so the state’s exempting all cars made before 1996 from testing. Brian Urbaszewski is with the American Lung Association.
“When you stop testing them, people aren’t even going to know their cars are polluting. Or, even if they know, they’re going to be less likely to fix it because there’s no penalty involved.”
The Lung Association says the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s own documents show that air quality will get worse after the 2007 change.
State and federal EPA officials admit that’s true, but they say fewer of those cars will be on the road each year. They say computer testing is better because it detects problems before they happen and it’s cheaper.
Scientists are always looking for a new deterrent for the Asian Carp. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Scientists across the region are expanding their arsenal of technology to fight invasive species. One research team hopes to use sound and bubbles to keep an invasive fish out of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:
Transcript
Scientists across the region are expanding their arsenal of technology to fight invasive species. One research team hopes to use sound and bubbles to keep an invasive fish out of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:
For years, biologists worried Asian Carp could enter Lake Michigan through a canal near Chicago. The Army Corps of Engineers is building an electric barrier at the canal to block the carp’s progress.
But researchers at Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant are devising a back-up plan. Researcher Mark Pegg says new devices could shoo fish away with bubbles and sound.
“The bubbles themselves are causing a lot of turbulence in the water that the fish don’t like. On top of that, they’re emitting a really loud noise, at least to the fish anyway, so that’s sort of a one-two punch.”
Pegg says the combination of bubbles and sound works in another way too. Bubbles actually amplify underwater noise, so sound travels further. The Sea Grant team will continue testing the devices. In the meantime though, even if it works, the project might hit a roadblock: the existing barrier program has no extra money for the system.
States in the Northeast are trying to set an example for other states by reducing power plant emissions. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A recently uncovered document reveals that Northeast states plan pollution reductions beyond federal requirements. Many of these states have already sued Midwestern states over power plant pollution. Their new effort might put even more pressure on the region’s utility industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A recently uncovered document reveals that Northeast states plan pollution reductions beyond federal requirements. Many of these states have already sued Midwestern states over power plant pollution. Their new effort might put even more pressure on the region’s utility industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
A document brought to light by the New York Times revealed that nine Northeastern states are working on an agreement to reduce power plant emissions – including greenhouse gases – beyond the federal government’s restrictions.
Besides making significant reductions in pollution, it’s believed the Northeast states are trying to set an example for other states such as those in the Midwest where there are a lot of power plants. Doug Scott is the Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. He says they’re working on the problem.
“We’re trying to work with the other twelve states in the Midwest Governors Association on long-range plans to try to reduce emissions. That really isn’t much different in concept than what the Northeastern states are doing.”
Scott says reductions might not reach the same levels as the Northeast states’ plan because of greater economic impact on the industrial Midwest.
The town of Elburn, IL is working to preserve their small town feel in the face of sprawling development headed their way. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Bulldozers prepare the site of the new train station in Elburn, IL. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Planners are hoping the new train station and denser development will save Elburn's rural character. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:
Transcript
Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching
suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town
is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past
to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
has this report:
Eric Gustaffson is a young guy who works at his family’s drug store. He says he plans to stick around because he likes his small town – Elburn, Illinois – just as it is. It’s still got a working grain elevator and animal feed stores. It also has a real town center, a strip of shops that people can walk to.
But like a lot of his neighbors, Eric’s bothered by some of the sprawling subdivisions that are popping up nearby. He doesn’t want to see that that kind of development come to Elburn. He says it would become a place where neighbors live too far apart and everyone has to drive to get anywhere. He does have hope, though.
“I really think that the plan that Elburn has set in place will work a lot better and will control how things grow a little bit more instead of just things from popping up in random places.”
So, what’s the plan? Well, it turns out Elburn’s looking to its past for help. Residents used to catch passenger trains here for day trips to Chicago. The passenger service died out decades ago, but now Elburn’s bringing in a new train station. It will be part of the region’s Metra commuter rail system.
By next year, commuters will be able to avoid the congested roads that lead to Chicago, but the town also wants the station to be the center of a new neighborhood, a cluster of new shops, smaller homes, and even apartments.
The idea’s to get people to walk to stores and the train instead of driving to them, all of which is very different from what’s happening in nearby subdivisions. Those are pretty much isolated tracts of big houses and little else.
There is some danger in Elburn’s plan, though. The proposed development could double the population, and the train station will attract extra car traffic to its parking lot. During our drive to the construction site, I ask the mayor, Jim Willey, whether this plan might kill the town while trying to save it.
“I get the impression sometimes people wish that we had some secret sauce we could spray on the town and keep it just the way it is. It’s sad, but you can’t do that and change happens, and we have to deal with it.”
(Sound of heavy machinery)
At the site, construction machines pack down a couple of acres of dirt. It took a decade, a lot of political will, and a hundred and forty million dollars to start the project. But Jim says that was the easy part.
It will be harder to resist the temptation to stray from the plan, and build only big, single family homes here. He says a compact mix of stores and housing will be good for the region, not just Elburn. If there’s enough housing here, maybe there’ll be less pressure to build houses on the nearby farms.
“You can’t go anywhere in the world and find finer farmland than where we’re at right now. So the least that we can do is, when we’re going to convert this to housing, is let’s think about what we’re doing, let’s try to make some intelligent decisions.”
There are towns that look like Elburn’s vision of the future. Last century, commuter towns with compact development sprung up along the country’s commuter rail lines. But they all got their start in the days before interstate highways and long car commutes. So, is it possible to mimic those towns now, in the post-automobile age?
Well, I put that question to Dave Schulz. He’s with the Infrastructure Technology Institute, a federally-funded transportation research group. He says it’s hard to keep projects like Elburn’s on track; homes are clustered close to shops, what planners call high-density. He cites Glenview, another Illinois town with a commuter rail station.
“Basically, a number of members of the Glenview board who were voted out of office for approving a townhome development that was judged, apparently, by voters to be too high density near the train station. I think we have a situation where people in the suburbs fear density.”
Schulz says it’s hard to change that attitude. But to fend off the sprawl of suburban development, towns like Elburn need to stay the course. Otherwise…
“If all you’re gonna do is build a bunch of stations in the middle of the cornfields with giant parking lots to allow people to drive to the station from wherever they choose to live, I think a fairly strong argument can be made that you’re not fighting sprawl, but you’re in fact facilitating sprawl.”
Dave Schulz says places like Elburn could be onto something. Maybe its plan for compact development will attract people looking for something different from typical suburban homes. If Elburn can keep its small-town feel, maybe newcomers won’t mind giving up their spacious yards and extra cars.
Some people who escape to Promontory Point from the "concrete jungle" of Chicago are worried about the Point's future. (Photo by James Lin)
Cities along the Great Lakes often depend on sea walls to keep the crashing waves from eroding the shoreline. Some of those walls have been around for close to a century. One city wants to rebuild its protective walls. But the neighborhood near one popular section is not happy about it. They say the huge limestone blocks give the area character. They don’t want concrete to replace any of it. But the structure is deteriorating, and the city and Army Corps of Engineers want to shore it up. The plan for repairing the seawall is igniting an age-old debate between historic preservation and shoreline protection… and it’s got an entire neighborhood ready to fight. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has more:
Transcript
Cities along the Great Lakes often depend on sea walls
to keep the crashing waves from eroding the shoreline. Some of
those walls have been around for close to a century. One city wants
to rebuild its protective walls. But the neighborhood near one popular
section is not happy about it.
They say the huge limestone blocks give
the area character. They don’t want concrete to replace any of it. But
the structure is deteriorating, and the city and Army Corps of Engineers
want to shore it up. The plan for repairing the seawall is igniting an
age-old debate between historic preservation and shoreline protection…
and it’s got an entire neighborhood ready to fight. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has more:
(Sound of water)
Jack Reed stands on the edge of the huge limestone rocks that make up the seawall, drying himself off. He just swam a mile along the shore of Lake Michigan. He drapes a big flannel sheet over his head that he’s fashioned into a makeshift changing tent, and modestly gets out of his swimsuit.
The 67-year-old has been swimming off this rocky peninsula that juts into Lake Michigan for forty years now. He says the trees and the giant limestone rocks made him appreciate nature and realize how much he needs a break from the city.
“I sort of hate to leave and go back to the grind, ’cause when you’re out here, you can relax and look at the sky and get in the water and watch the birds and the clouds go by. It’s like a vacation trip, just as long as you have time for.”
The place where Reed comes to swim and relax is called Promontory Point. The point is lined with large limestone blocks that stretch along the water like a chunky, irregular staircase.
People come here to swim, fish and bicycle. They have picnics, walk their dogs and throw Frisbees.
The city and Army Corps want to replace a lot of the limestone with concrete. They say the limestone seawall is getting weak. They just overcame an important obstacle by winning approval for their concept from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency which recognizes the limestone wall as a historic part of Chicago. Jack Reed says replacing the limestone with concrete would make the Point seem sterile.
“The thing about concrete is it’s artificial. It’s manmade. We spend most of our lives inside buildings and buses and subway tunnels; that’s all manmade.”
Reed says he comes here to escape what he calls the “concrete jungle” of the city. He says the limestone makes a soft, naturalistic transition between land and water. But the lakeshore isn’t as natural as it looks.
Less than a century ago, this whole area was part of the lake. The point was created by dumping debris into the lake in the 1920s. Workers built the limestone seawalls on top of wood shorings. Now the wood is rotting, and the rocks are shifting. The city and the Army Corps say that’s dangerous for people and for the shoreline.
And the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency says there needs to be balance between safety and historic preservation and making the shoreline accessible to people with disabilities. David Blanchette is with the state agency. He says the wall has to be reconstructed to stabilize the shoreline.
“Our job is to make sure that this historical resource, which was built for a specific purpose quite some time ago, preserves as much hisotric character as possible, but still allows it to function for its intended use.”
The work at Promontory Point is part of a 300-million dollar project to replace miles of old limestone revetments along the city’s lakeshore, but the point has caused a snag in the plan. Community members and preservationists have stalled the work at Promontory Point for years now.
The Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois put the point on its list of ten most endangered historic places in the state, putting it at odds with the Historic Preservation agency.
And Council president David Bahlman says it’s one of the few spots left where the lakeshore hasn’t been hardened with concrete.
“Let’s say it’s an unacceptable compromise that moves closer to ensuring that two-thirds of the point is going to be destroyed.”
Most critics acknowledge something needs to be done to protect the shore from erosion. But they say it’s entirely possible to come up with a plan that preserves limestone on the entire seawall, not just part of it. A community group is now lobbying the U.S. Senate for legislation to prevent funding for construction unless the limestone wall is preserved much as it is. A similar measure has already passed the U.S. House.
The Blanding's turtle is protected by federal law. It's illegal to buy or sell them. (Photo courtesy of Michigan DNR)
The federal government and several states in the region have used undercover agents and other tactics to crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
Transcript
The federal government and several states in the region
have used undercover agents and other tactics to
crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio
man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
A Columbus man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for illegally buying and selling fifty-three Blandings turtles, protected by federal law. Over the past three years, fifty-seven other dealers in the region have been convicted for illegal trading in turtles, snakes, and lizards.
Jim McCormack of the Ohio Natural Resources Department says Ohio’s population of Blandings turtles has been decimated by wetlands destruction along Lake Erie. He says the thousand or so that survive must be protected so they don’t go extinct and prompt a domino effect on other animals and plants.
“We don’t want to see anything, whether it’s as obscure as some rare lichen or moss to something as showy and obvious and noteworthy as that turtle, to disappear.”
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois classify the Blandings turtle as “threatened,” and Indiana classifies it as “endangered.”
A former industrial site is being redeveloped with parks, wetlands and homes. Residents have high hopes the new development will boost the local economy. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
A riverfront park is part of the redevelopment.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
Brownfield redevelopers are hoping to entice people to live along the riverfront, too. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
As the American economy shifts away from heavy industry, each closed factory risks becoming a brownfield. That’s a site that contains potentially hazardous materials. For the past decade, the federal government has provided help in assessing and cleaning these properties. It has proved to be one of the most popular environmental programs. It’s giving hope to small towns that need help in remaking their landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
As the American economy shifts away from heavy industry, each closed factory
risks becoming a brownfield. That’s a site that contains potentially
hazardous materials. For the past decade, the federal government has provided help in assessing and
cleaning these properties. It has proved to be one of the most popular environmental programs. It’s
giving hope to small towns that need help in remaking their landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
When a Rust Belt city loses another factory, the townspeople don’t suffer
just from the loss of jobs. They’re often stuck with crumbling buildings or even polluted land. Not to mention, the local economy isn’t strong enough to fix them up.
It’s a dilemma familiar to East Moline, a small Illinois town that sits
along the banks of the Mississippi River. Since the early 80s, the town’s lost thousands of jobs in the farm machinery
industry. Rich Keehner is the City of East Moline’s assistant administrator. He says
there is a plan for the industrial riverfront.
“Right now there’s a movement to relocate or pull industrial uses from the
river. And then of course turn that riverfront property into bike paths or some
recreational activities to improve our quality of life. And that’s exactly
what we’re doing here.”
It’s a simple idea: move industry away from the river and work with
developers to make it an attractive place to play or even live. But it’s just not that easy. Keehner says developers won’t build on these sites until it’s clear what kind
of pollution, if any, might be there.
Testing the area’s soil and water can get expensive, so sites can remain
empty for years. Meanwhile, developers look for greener pastures. Really, they can just build on farmland instead.
During the past decade, the U.S. EPA’s paid for pollution testing at hundreds
of sites. The agency also funds some cleanup and other costs. East Moline’s used several grants to develop eighty acres of riverfront donated
by the John Deere Company.
With the Mississippi riverbank at his back, Keehner points out some new
houses developed on the site.
“It’s got some great amenitities, located next to the bike path. You
can just wake up any time night or day and look out at the river. And your
neighbors are very limited; it’s very peaceful.”
The district also boasts a small light house, a lot of park space, and some
wetlands areas. Keehner says brownfields grants funded about six percent of the project’s
total cost. That doesn’t sound like much, but the money’s played a key role. He says private money couldn’t be secured until there was progress on the
environmental front.
A lot of environmentalists and civic groups applaud the program even though
a lot of credit goes to someone they often criticize. Namely, President
George Bush. His critics admit the brownfields program is one of the brighter spots of
his environmental policy.
In 2002, President Bush signed legislation that expanded the program’s
funding and breadth. Alan Front is the vice president of the Trust for Public Land, a
conservation group.
“The administration, ever since signing that bill, has budgeted about 200
million dollars a year to make this program really vibrant and so not only
have they created the wallet, but they’ve filled it in a way that really
benefits communities around the country.”
Front says the expansion’s brought a tighter focus on the environmental
needs of smaller towns. Apart from the grants, there’s another reason for the program’s popularity. The EPA trains city administrators to use federal brownfield money to
leverage private dollars.
Charles Bartsch has been teaching such courses for ten years.
He says, to compete with larger cities, smaller towns need to show they
understand their local economies.
“I suggest to towns what they should do first of all is to decide what their
competitive economic niche is.”
That means, developing around a community asset, like East Moline’s tried
with its attractive riverfront. Bartsch says, for all the progress small town administrators have made, they’re still pretty isolated. He says they need to cast a wide social net, so
they can find the best advice.
“The key thing is less knowing how to do it yourself, but more knowing who to
reliably call to walk through ideas and walk through options.”
The brownfields program does have its critics. They say it’s tilted in favor
of land development over open space and they worry about how much oversight
there is of environmental testing.
Back at the East Moline site, it’s easy to see why small towns are
participating. Residents there now have more access to the river, bike paths, parks, and,
for some people, new homes. East Moline, and a lot of other small towns like it, are seeking even more brownfields money.
They’ve got a lot of other sites that want a chance at a new life.
A new report warns of a strain on water resources due to increased usage. (Photo by Annette Gulick)
Water use in six Great Lakes states is likely to go up. That’s according to a new study by researchers at Southern Illinois University. They say, by the year 2025, demand could outstrip supply in some areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:
Transcript
Water use in six Great Lakes states is likely to go up. That’s according to
a news study by researchers at Southern Illinois University. They say, by
the year 2025, demand could outstrip supply in some areas. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:
The report predicts that in twenty years, the region will use roughly seven
percent more water than it does today. That’s not enough to endanger the Great Lakes or most groundwater sources, but it is enough to strain water resources in some parts of the region.
Water use will grow fastest in Illinois and Ohio, mostly because they are
likely to see the most economic growth. Researcher Ben Dziegielewski says there’s a connection
between wealth and water.
“People with higher income tend to use more water, because they tend to have
swimming pools, and sprinklers for flower beds, and maybe even green lawns.”
The report predicts that states with slower economic growth, like Indiana
and Michigan, will use less water in the next two decades. Wisconsin and Minnesota are expected to use about the same amount of water.
The intersection of Devon and Broadway in Chicago, just a few blocks from Lake Michigan. Alderman Patrick O'Connor is concerned that this corner is a bad use of space - not as walkable as the rest of the neighborhood. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Most of the neighborhood encourages pedestrians and is less car-friendly. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Cities are always coming up with projects to improve land or even create jobs, and sometimes existing buildings just don’t fit into those plans. Often, owners of such property won’t sell to make way for new development. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on the legality of one tool cities use to force reluctant landowners to sell. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one politician’s use of this legal power:
Transcript
Cities are always coming up with projects to improve land
or even create jobs, and sometimes existing buildings just don’t fit
into those plans. Often, owners of such property won’t sell to make
way for new development. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on the
legality of one tool cities use to force reluctant landowners to sell. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one
politician’s use of this legal power:
This big-city neighborhood is the kind of place where shoppers usually park their cars and walk around. Brick store fronts and restaurants are usually just a few feet from the sidewalk.
But there’s a corner that looks different, though. A lot different.
It’s home to three fast-food buildings. The first business is a popular donut shop. Next door, there’s a fried chicken drive-through. And the last building was once a burger joint, but today it’s home to a car title lender.
To hear the alderman, Patrick O’Connor, tell it, the strip looks like a piece of suburbia landed right in his big-city ward.
“There’s no symmetry, no walkability, it’s all car-related and it’s all basically parking lot. There’s more asphalt than there is building in those places.”
He says this corner on Chicago’s North Side is a bad use of space, and he’s hoping to attract new, more pedestrian-friendly businesses or buildings. But what’s to be done about it if these shops are already there and don’t want to sell? One of O’Connor’s options is to have the city force the owners to sell their properties and then redevelop the land.
The power to forcibly buy property is called eminent domain, and O’Connor says the city’s using it to speed redevelopment throughout Chicago. But O’Connor’s concerned time may run out on the use of this power.
Governments have long-used eminent domain for public use. For example, a city or state might condemn a whole neighborhood, buy out the homeowners, and level the buildings to make way for a road or airport.
But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case called Kelo versus New London, is considering just how far government can go when using eminent domain to bolster private development.
O’Connor hopes the court sides with local governments.
“In our community there’s not too many open spaces. So what we look to do is to enhance what we have to try to utilize space to the maximum effectiveness. That’s really where the court case hinges, you know, Who’s to say one use is better than another?”
And that question – who decides the best use of a property – is the rallying cry of critics who say cities abuse eminent domain powers.
Sam Staley’s with the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think-tank. He says the Supreme Court case is really about fairness.
“Those people that know how to use the system and know the right people in city council really have the ability to compel a neighbor or another property to sell their property whether they want to or not.”
Staley and other property rights advocates are also convinced that cities don’t need eminent domain for economic development. Staley says local economies can improve without government interference.
“The private sector’s just gotten lazy. They no longer want to have to go through the market, so they don’t come up with creative ways of accommodating property rights of the people that own the pieces of land or building that they want to develop.”
Staley says, instead, developers find it easier to have cities use eminent domain.
But most urban planners and some environmentalists say a court decision against this use of eminent domain could threaten redevelopment of both cities and aging suburbs. John Echevarria is with Georgetown University’s Environmental Law and Policy Institute.
“If you don’t have the power of eminent domain, you can’t do effective downtown redevelopment. The inevitable result would be more shopping centers, more development on the outskirts of urban areas, and more sprawl.”
Alderman O’Connor says constituents will always push urban politicians to put scarce land to better use. He says that won’t change if the court strikes down the broadest eminent domain powers; cities will just have to resort to strong-arm tactics instead.
“The alternative is the city then has to become harsher on how they try to enforce laws. They have to try and run sting operations and go after businesses that are breaking the law and then try to close them down and live with empty places until the sellers get tired and they sell.”
The small business community finds this attitude outrageous. They say as long as they improve their businesses and people frequent them, the market should decide whether they stay or go.
On the other hand, urban planners say the market doesn’t always make best use of land. They say local governments need eminent domain powers to control development, and they’re looking to the court to protect those powers.
The expansion of an existing steel mill could mean more jobs but less forest. (Photo courtesy of AmericasLibrary.gov)
Everybody has different ideas about how land ought to be used. Lately, the fight’s been about whether to allow expanding retail development on farmland. But a different fight’s going on right now, too. It’s a fight between two long-time rivals – heavy industry and open space. It’s also about jobs and preservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:
Transcript
Everybody has different ideas about how land ought
to be used. Lately, the fight’s been about whether to allow
expanding retail development on farmland. But a different
fight’s going on right now, too. It’s a fight between two
long-time rivals – heavy industry and open space. It’s also
about jobs and preservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Shawn Allee has this report:
(Sound of train)
The town of Riverdale’s a kind of industrial crossroads. It’s near a Great Lakes port, heavy trucks lumber through its streets, and in some areas, rail crossings are as common as stop signs. At one time, this village just south of Chicago was known for more than just moving industrial goods – thosands of workers used to make things here, especially steel.
(Sound of birds)
Today, there are only a few hundred steel jobs left in Riverdale. Most are at one plant that sits near a stretch of Cook County Forest Preserve, a place called Whistler Woods. The remaining steel mill wants to expand. It wants to swap twenty one acres of Whistler Woods for thirty one acres of its own wooded land. Supporters hope the move will bring jobs to the town.
Jim Bush grew up in the area and is with the region’s chamber of commerce. He supports the deal, saying the area is fighting for its economic future.
“So you can see, it’s pretty hard to keep your schools up to standards and all your city services when you’re faced with a declining tax base.”
Bush says this is urgent. The Riverdale plant was recently bought out by Mittal Steel, the world’s largest steel company. Bush says to keep the mill attractive to the new owners, the county needs to make the company happy now.
“Mittal USA has plants all around the world. If they don’t do this expansion here, they’re talking about taking it to Ohio. We can’t let other states take business away from Illinois without doing something.”
Besides, he says, critics of the land swap should just do the math.
“Thirty-one acres for twenty-one acres. Sounds like a no-brainer to the business community.”
But not everyone’s buying into that calculation. To understand why, I meet with Benjamin Cox. He’s with Friends of the Forest Preserves, an advocacy group. Cox and I are traveling along the bike path leading to the field the company wants to acquire.
“As you’re walking along here, you can hear many, many birds. We just saw some deer. There are wonderful native plants here.”
Cox says the forest preserve district could use an extra ten acres, but the company’s offering land that’s half a mile away and across a river. Cox says that land won’t help these woods. He also doesn’t have much faith in the company’s new owners.
“The part of this that nobody’s talked about yet is that they have not committed to actually bring these jobs here or do this project.”
The company confirms this, saying it can’t make promises about jobs even if it could expand the plant. Cox adds the proposal flies in the face of Forest Preserves history. During the past ninety years, it’s only sold or traded land a handful of times and the last time it did, it go burned. A few years ago, it let go of two acres so Rosemont, a Chicago suburb, could build a casino parking lot. The parking lot got built, but the casino project never got started.
Now Cox fears if this deal goes through, it’ll be open season on Forest Preserve land.
“As soon as you start nibbling away at the corners, a little acre here, a little acre there, twenty acres here. All of a sudden, it’s ‘You did it for them, you should do it for me.'”
The plan’s supporters say they don’t want to sell off the preserves, they just want a little flexibility.
Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims represents Riverdale and surrounding communities. She says opponents are typically from more affluent parts of the county, places that have an easy time attracting new businesses. There, she says,
“All you have to do is build a few houses and everybody will come. We don’t have that luxury. So, any economic development we have, we can’t afford to lose.”
So the land swap seems a small price to pay for a little economic security.
A tall chain-link fence separates the woods from the Riverdale steel plant. Despite the division, both parcels of land have something in common – their boosters are motivated by fear.
The area’s steel industry is, in many ways, a diminishing, precious resource. The Cook County Forest Preserve District also faces a crossroads, but a more political one. It holds tens of thousands of acres of open land, but it’s not clear whether it can always fend off demands made by a land-hungry economy.
