Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge Proposal Wins Federal Approval

This past week saw some great news this week for citizens of the greater Chicago region as well as southeast Wisconsin. The US Dept of the Interior has announced the approval of the Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge, a constellation of planned open spaces and conservation areas that will link existing green spaces in NE Illinois and SE Wisconsin. It will be the closest wildlife refuge to the Chicago area, and is a future boon for regional ecotourism, land preservation planning, and sustainable economic development.

The map above depicts the original study area of the proposed refuge. According to the USFWS Division of Conservation Planning, it “includes the refuge Study Area boundary in black plus conservation lands currently owned by the State of Illinois, the State of Wisconsin, counties in both states, non-governmental organizations, land conservancies, and private individuals. Because land ownership is dynamic, some existing conservation lands may not be shown and some areas may have changed in status since this data were obtained.”

This somewhat more schematic map below, which was distributed widely via the media, shows the now-authorized boundaries of the new refuge, and clearly depicts the donut-shaped collection of open space and protected lands (including future conservation areas) that straddles the Illinois-Wisconsin state border.

What makes the Hackmatack Refuge unique within the longstanding national wildlife refuge system is its close proximity to a major metropolitan area (and therefore millions of potential visitors per year) and the fact that it will be composed of a mosaic of present and future protected landscapes, rather than a single contiguous parcel of federal land. For more information on the scope and significance of Hackmatack, see this news article from the Daily Herald, the Friends of Hackmatack website, and US Fish & Wildlife Service’s official webpage for the Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge.

Urban Farms in Silicon Valley

The key litmus test of a good professional conference for me is this: are there cool field trips planned? If the answer is yes, the gathering is likely to be an enjoyable and fruitful occasion. That was definitely the case at the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences conference this past weekend in California, where I went on a bus and walking tour of two urban farms in the Silicon Valley: Full Circle Farm in Sunnydale (near Santa Clara), and Veggielution Community Farm in San José. Both are quite large operations by urban farm standards, but like many such sites are relatively young in age and still under development.

Full Circle Farm is intriguing for a number of reasons. At ten acres, the farmstead is huge — walking the grounds you have an expansive view of the sky and feel the freedom of being in a large swath of open land — something rather different from most small gardens and farms that are hemmed in with the urban built environment.

The farm is located on grounds owned by the local school district: formerly a football field, the land now belongs to an adjacent middle school, which leases the property to the Full Circle Farm non-profit organization in exchange for free educational programming for the school district. (The precise and somewhat complex terms of the lease are now up for renegotiation, something fairly typical for urban farm operations.) The farm is incredibly diverse: it has plot after plot of veggies and herbs, of course, but also free-roaming chickens, a children’s garden, a huge community garden area run by volunteers, a large outdoor theater (!), and more.

Full Circle Farm, Sunnyvale CA (from their website)

One fascinating thing that happened while we were there was an up-close wildlife encounter: a juvenile red-tailed hawk flew around and perched near us for several minutes. It was trying to hunt some recently fledged killdeer in a plowed field, something the parent killdeer weren’t too pleased about; while unsuccessful in her hunt, perhaps due to the fussing of the parent killdeer, the hawk taught us an important urban ecology lesson: a farm of this scale, and probably one considerably smaller, can provide critical habitat for wildlife in the city and suburban landscape, and thus contribute to the conservation of biodiversity (in addition to all the other incredible functions of these spaces).

The other farmstead we visited was in San José, in the midst of a largely Hispanic community of limited means and with great need of access to fresh, healthy food. Hence the mission of Veggielution Community Farm, which aims to “build community[,] . . . embrace diversity[,] . . . empower youth[, and]  . . . create a sustainable food system.” At two acres under cultivation, this farm started back in 2008 as a humble community garden plot within an existing city parkland — the Emma Prusch Farm Park — that itself was donated to San José by a forward-thinking woman who decided that agricultural land preservation in the fast-urbanizing Silicon Valley was more important than selling her property to developers. Current plans call for significantly expanding the farm’s operation within several more acres they have leased from the park district.

Veggielution Community Farm, San Jose CA (from their website)

An intriguing features of Veggielution Community Farm is its location: right along the soaring and rather imposing structure of a long, curving highway entrance ramp — a landscape feature that is highlighted in their official logo. But looking in the other direction with the roar of the highway at your back, you can see mountains in the not-too-far distance along the suburban horizon (as shown at left). To a native Midwesterner, this was a visually dramatic location to observe the typical on-the-ground activities of an urban farm.

My big takeaway from visiting these urban farms in Silicon Valley, a place simultaneously of great wealth and of considerable need among the less-fortunate population? Large-scale farms such as these are impressive for a number of reasons, and incredible diverse and multifaceted in their outreach to and impact upon the community. They also, like most urban farms, plunge forward despite heavy reliance upon volunteer labor (and even volunteer management, to some degree), regular turnover among staff (such as the 1-2 year rotations by AmeriCorps workers, who are an amazing and vital human resource here), and razor-thin budget margins. They have the benefit of a year-round growing season, yes, but must import all of their water because the region is so dry. And they combine the production of good food with exuberant cultural activities and positive and progressive community development. They are thus places of magic and inspiration — and hope for a more sustainable food production system in suburban ecosystems.

Here in the Midwest, the heart of the heartland, we’re making strides with urban farming — especially in big cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit. But the smaller cities and suburbs have a lot of catching up to do. That’s OK, but we should get going soon. For while our growing season here in Illinois is shorter than that of CA, we’ve got good land to work and/or reclaim — and abundant precipitation to feed our crops (this dry spring and early summer excepted). And as for people in need of work, inspiration, education, and healthy food? Yeah, we’ve got them in abundance.

Bulldozing the Rights of the People: That’s the Illiana Way

Remember the Prairie Parkway? Just a few years ago, it was the Big New Road Project of choice in northeastern Illinois. A monumentally dumb idea for a whole host of reasons, the Prairie Parkway fortunately fizzled after the recession of 2008 (though old road projects are rather like zombies that can’t be killed once and for all).

The new road of the day is the much ballyhooed Illiana Expressway, which will link the booming metropolises of Lowell, IN, and Wilmington, IL, and in the process pave over a lot of high-quality Midwestern farmland. But the Illiana isn’t a gentle zombie that plods along with a vacant stare. No, this road monster is pure evil, and it’s coming after us with ferocious speed.

Map of proposed routes for the Illiana Expressway (source: IDOT)

Local politicians and IDOT officials claim we need the Illiana to divert truck traffic from I-80 and US-30; support the burgeoning warehouse/distribution center district in central Will County; provide east-west highway access to the yet-to-be-built (or even approved) Peotone Airport; and create jobs.

I’m all for more jobs, especially if they’re permanent ones that pay a living wage with benefits and occur in an environment that does not tolerate sexual harassment of workers. (This, Joliet-area readers know, is not always the case with the warehouse/distribution industry here in Will County.) But the traffic relief  argument smells fishy to me, since this always ends up being, well, a red herring. Remember how I-355 was supposed to relieve traffic on I-55 and 294? Last time I drove those interstates, they were still among the most traffic-choked in the region.

The Peotone Airport reference is the really big red flag, though. Right now, legal but unethical eminent domain proceedings are being wielded by IDOT against Will County landowners unwilling to give up their land for this Great Imaginary Airport that no airline supports.

Now the Illinois legislature has approved “quick-take” powers for IDOT to seize more private property for the Illiana Expressway, an action that should outrage you, fellow citizens. Why?

Start with the gross injustice here. Quick-take allows the state to simply declare it wants a piece of property, then take it. The process is nice and quick — hence the name — and conveniently circumvents the normal eminent domain process (itself hardly benign) by which citizens may take the state to court to fight the condemnation or haggle over a selling price once their property is condemned.

Secondly, the road has no funding. The only money that’s been allocated thus far for the Illiana is $9 million for several years’ worth of environmental impact and planning studies. Projected unfunded construction costs include over $3 billion for the Illinois section alone.

Will County farmland just south of Joliet, June 2006 (M. Bryson)

Finally, and mostly absurdly, IDOT hasn’t decided where the road will go. Right now two different routes for the Illiana are being evaluated (along with, ironically, a “no-build” option to appease malcontents like me). How in the world can IDOT condemn property under quick-take if an official route hasn’t yet been chosen and approved? Does this strike anyone else besides me as completely illogical?

Perhaps this is root of the problem. When it comes to phantom roads and imaginary airports, there are no ethics or logic operating in Springfield.

The road monsters are coming, people. It’s quick-take season now. Better get out of the way, or you’ll get run over.

This essay is a revised version of my op-ed column that appeared in today’s Joliet Herald-News as “Illiana Bulldozing Rights of Citizens in Its Path.” Though I’m not a transportation / planning expert, I tend to think we have plenty of roads in Illinois already. I also appreciate the fact that my Joliet residential street was repaved last week; notably, no new roads were created in that stimulation of the local economy.

From the Chicago Portage to the Iron Street Farm: An Urban Landscape Exploration

Last Saturday was the first field trip opportunity of the summer for my PLS 392 Seminar in Humanities class at Roosevelt, the focus of which is “Representing the Urban Landscape.” After last summer’s trip to Canal Origins and Stearns Quarry Parks on Chicago’s Southwest Side, I decided to choose two different urban areas to explore — but sticking with the theme of how water and the land interact through time and space.

Ferdinand G. Rebechini’s massive sculpture of Father Jacques Marquette, explorer Louis Jolliet, and an unnamed Native American guide, erected 1989 at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site (M. Bryson)

We convened first at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site in Lyons, IL (on Harlem Ave just north of the Stevenson/I-55 expressway) for a guided tour run by the Friends of the Chicago Portage volunteer organization. Our two-hour walking tour through this historic site within the Cook County Forest Preserve was led by local historian Jeff Carter, a longtime member of the Friends of the Chicago Portage volunteer organization. FCP runs tours, produces educational documents and videos, organizes clean-up days for the preserve, and advocates for the creation of an interpretative center that could enhance the educational and public outreach value of the site.

Portage Creek, a tributary of the Des Plaines River, where Marquette and Jolliet canoed and portaged in their journey north to Chicago in 1673 (M. Bryson)

As it is, though, the Chicago Portage — sometimes referred to as Chicago’s Plymouth Rock because of its incredible historical significance to the city’s and state’s geography, cultural history, and economic development — is a wonderful out-of-the-way place to visit. Its woods, meadows, ponds, and creeks not only harbor a rich array of wildlife, but serve as a space-and-time capsule of the days of the late 17th century, when European explorers such as Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, and René Robert Cavalier, Sieur De La Salle walked and canoed the area with the help of Native American guides.

After an extremely pleasant picnic lunch at the foot of the remarkable Marquette and Joliet sculpture at this Cook County Forest Preserve site (one of only two Nat’l Historic Sites in IL), we headed up Interstate 55, into Chicago proper, to Growing Power’s Iron Street Farm — at 7 acres one of the biggest among the many urban farms operating within Chicago’s city limits.

Lavender pots and the big mural at Iron Street Farm (M. Bryson)

Located in a former truck depot / distribution center at Iron and 34th Streets in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, the Iron Street farm represents a 21st century adaptive and sustainable re-use of a post-industrial 20th century urban site. As such, it’s both an actual and symbolic transformation of the land — not to mention an aesthetically (as well as ecologically) significant improvement of the area.

Lily Bryson (age 10) walks through one of the many hoop houses at Iron Street (M. Bryson)
Iron Street farmer and tour guide Erica Hougland shows my kids the red wiggler worms in one of the many vermiculture compost bins inside the farm’s building (M. Bryson)

Iron Street Farm has a Chicago River connection, too. It’s located right on the west bank of Bubbly Creek, the infamously polluted yet still fascinating industrial tributary of the South Branch of the Chicago River.

A view of Bubbly Creek, looking southwest from the roof of Iron Street Farm (M. Bryson)

So not only does the rooftop of Iron Street’s building provide a good view of Bubbly Creek, but also any rain that falls on the farm property is retained there, on-site, for use in growing plants and accelerating the decomposition of compost piles — rather than entering the stormwater sewer system and contributing to the combined sewage overflows that still plague the Chicago waterway system.

Both of these sites within the urban landscape — the Chicago Portage and Iron Street Farm — are connected by the history and present status of Chicago’s waterways; and both are intimately linked to how we can re-imagine and redevelop the city’s natural resources for the benefit of water quality, wildlife, and our own human experience.

For more pictures of this field trip, see these Chicago Portage and Iron Street Farm annotated photo albums.

Nature and Culture Explorations in Chicago and Joliet

This weekend I’m schlepping my two children around the Chicago region from one interesting bit of landscape to another. I’m testing their patience, as Lily and Esmé are only ten and five years old, respectively; but the beautiful weather and the fascinating people we’ve met along the way have made it a rewarding experience.

Ferdinand G. Rebechini’s statue of Marquette and Joliet at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site (M. Bryson)

Yesterday I organized a two-part field trip for my PLS 392 humanities seminar at Roosevelt University, the theme of which is “Representing the Urban Landscape.” This was our urban field trip opportunity, and we convened first at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site in Lyons, IL (on Harlem Ave just north of the Stevenson/I-55 expressway) for a guided tour run by the Friends of the Chicago Portage volunteer organization. After an extremely pleasant picnic lunch at the foot of the remarkable Marquette and Joliet sculpture at this Cook County Forest Preserve site (one of only two Nat’l Historic Sites in IL), we were treated to an in-depth tour of Growing Power’s Iron Street Farm, one of the biggest among the many urban farms operating within Chicago’s city limits.

Lily Bryson walks through one of the hoop houses at Iron Street Farm (M. Bryson)

After the kids and I said goodbye to my students, we ventured through the South Side to the Hyde Park neighborhood with my brother, David (the Cool Uncle), and explored two of my favorite Chicago bookstores: the bastion of all-things-scholarly (and beyond) Seminary Co-op and the kid-friendly 57th Street Books. After loading up some books (and saving 20% during the annual Member’s Sale), we strolled through the 57th Street Art Fair and then had a fine dinner at Medici on their upstairs patio. Uncle Davey went his separate way into the lovely evening, while the kids and I strolled through the charming quadrangle of the University of Chicago, then drove out to Promontory Point — one of Hyde Park’s gems and a fine spot along the lakefront to gaze out over Lake Michigan and to admire the distinctive Chicago skyline.

Today we venture out in the opposite direction from our home in Joliet, heading south to Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie where I’m meeting with a group of faculty from Joliet Junior College on a weekend retreat about sustainability education. As I’ve been polishing my presentation slideshow for the morning’s session, I came across this excellent blog post about the Midewin landscape from 2010 by Adrian Ayers Fisher on his site, Ecological Gardening; as well as this beautifully-design blog, A Midewin Almanac, by Arthur Melville Pearson.

It’ll be good to see Midewin again. Despite living in Joliet, only about 25 minutes from the site, I don’t get there nearly enough. We’ll see if I can cajole my tired children into a prairie hike after our morning session!

The Airport Nobody Wants or Needs

The Saturday before Earth Day, Jesse Jackson, Jr. and a contingent of political supporters rode down to the farmlands of eastern Will County to spade up a little dirt in a pious promotion of the ill-fated Great Imaginary (aka Peotone) Airport.

Given that the project has neither FAA approval nor the support of a single major airline, Jackson’s well-publicized pontifications were presumptuous — but not pointless, for they re-energized the hitherto dispirited airport opposition movement around Peotone, Beecher, and Monee, the small towns most affected by this ongoing fiasco.

I drove out northeast of Peotone that Saturday in hopes of attending Jackson’s media stunt and the planned counter-demonstration by the longstanding grassroots organization Shut This Airport Nightmare Down (STAND). Turned out I was too late and missed them both.

IDOT's South Suburban Airport headquarters on Eagle Lake Road in eastern Will County, aka "The Compound" (M. Bryson)

But after heading past the Illinois Department of Transportation’s heavily-fenced airport headquarters on Eagle Lake Road west of State Route 50 — a place derisively nicknamed “The Compound” by locals for its quasi-military installation appearance — I ran into some folks who helpfully filled me in on the day’s proceedings.

Robert Ogalla, a farmer whose wife Judy is the vice-president of STAND, grows corn, soybeans, and wheat on their picturesque farm along County Road 10. Back in 2003, the Ogallas received a commendation from the Will-South Cook Soil and Water Conservation District for their exemplary efforts to reduce soil erosion and polluting runoff on their property.

The Ogalla farm as seen from the south (M. Bryson)

Mr. Ogalla described the lively scene that had transpired earlier that day at the Compound, where over 400 STAND supporters had gathered peacefully to protest Jackson’s groundbreaking event and voice their many objections to the state’s relentless land-acquisition plans.

“This is some of the best farmland in the world,” Ogalla told me, gesturing toward his well-tended fields. “Those trees you see there on the horizon were planted many years ago as part of Illinois’ Conservation Reserve Program by my 101-year-old neighbor.”

He paused to let that sink in, then continued, “All this will be gone if the airport gets built. The irony of it is that no airline even wants it.”

I talk with Virginia Hamann and Rob Ogalla on 21 April 2012 (M. Bryson)

Another STAND member, Virginia Hamann of Peotone, drives a bus for the Peotone School District and helps her husband run a dairy farm located across the road from the proposed airport. “What gets me is the terrible waste of money all this is,” she said.

How wasteful, you might ask? Many of those fertile fields I admired that day already have been purchased by the state — to be precise, 2,471 acres at the cost of 34,014,383 taxpayer dollars — all without FAA approval of the project, naturally. Now, with willing sellers scarce and land values low, IDOT has condemned some local farmers’ property (like that of Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt) to close the deal on the remaining acreage within the Great Imaginary Airport’s nine-square-mile footprint.

When I asked Ogalla and Hamann how their neighbors were feeling about the airport issue these days, they estimated that a strong majority, perhaps 70-80 percent, now backed STAND’s opposition to the project.

Virginia and Rob hold up a STAND sign at Rob's farm (M. Bryson)

So here’s your silver lining. After several years of community demoralization in the face of a seemingly-unstoppable government juggernaut, the awakening provided by Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s grandstanding gambit has re-ignited grassroots opposition to one of the most foolhardy endeavors in Illinois history. Or so I can only hope.

A version of this article was published as my monthly op-ed column in the 3 May 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. For more information from IDOT’s perspective, consult the official South Suburban Airport website. For deeper news and critical analysis, see the commentary and news reports on this blog as well as by WBEZ Chicago Public Radio and the Chicago Tribune for recent coverage of the political gamesmanship surrounding the Great Imaginary / Peotone / South Suburban / Abraham Lincoln National Airport.

Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind building an airport, too — but just a small one for balsa wood planes in my backyard in Joliet. No eminent domain proceedings by IDOT will be necessary in its construction.

Peotone Airport Controversy Takes Off

Today US Representative (IL-D) Jesse Jackson, Jr. will visit eastern Will County with a contingent of supporters and symbolically turn over a few spadefuls of earth in a supposed “groundbreaking” ceremony for the long-contested South Suburban Airport. Airport critics, I’ve learned, plan a protest demonstration today near the site of Jackson’s ceremony. As reported yesterday by the Chicago Sun-Times,

[Jackson] will be joined by ministers who will bless the ground — but not by other elected officials, many of whom consider the symbolic groundbreaking premature. No airline officials will be there to say they think it’s a good idea.

Gov. Pat Quinn has endorsed the airport and his administration has been buying land and negotiating with the FAA to eventually get clearance, but Quinn will not be attending.

In the past week alone, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek both threw cold water on the idea that there is any market for a third airport 30 miles south of Chicago’s Far South Side.

Jackson fought for years against former U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson — both when she was in the state Senate and later when she was a member of Congress representing Peotone — on the topic of Peotone.

Jackson has named his own board to oversee the construction and administration of the airport, which he thinks will bring jobs to the south suburbs and as far north as the South Side.

But Will County officials say they should be the ones running any airport in their own backyard.

Halvorson sided with the Will County officials. U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who succeeded Halvorson, and Will County Board member Cory Singer scheduled a rival news conference Saturday, then switched that to a Monday conference call, to offer their take on the airport.

“If the airport is going to be in Peotone, Will County should absolutely have control over it,” Kinzinger spokeswoman Brooke Hougesen said. Kinzinger is expected to call attention to the recent controversies at the firm Jackson wants to oversee the building of the airport, Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin. The Canadian government raided the firm’s offices last week after its CEO resigned following reports that a consultant tried to smuggle Moammar Gadhafis’s son into Mexico.

Jackson’s persistent enthusiasm for the airport’s construction as a job-creation engine for the South Suburbs was recently buoyed by his re-election to Congress, but conflicts with longstanding political claims by Will County Executive Larry Walsh and other leaders that the county should control the airport, not Jackson’s hand-picked commission. It also flies in the face of grassroots protests by eastern Will County residents of the project as a wasteful, urban sprawl-inducing boondoggle that will destroy prime Illinois farmland, create congestion, and increase air and water pollution.

As if that weren’t enough, the champions of Peotone Airport — including Jackson, Governor Pat Quinn, and the Illinois Department of Transportation — have not produced compelling evidence of sufficient demand from major airline carriers for a third metro airport. This fact was underscored on Thursday, April 19th, at the City Club of Chicago, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:

United Continental Holdings Inc. CEO and Chairman Jeff Smisek says “there’s no demand” for a third airport in the Chicago area.

Smisek spoke Thursday to the civic organization City Club of Chicago. Smisek said any benefits from a proposed third Chicago-area airport near Peotone would damage O’Hare International Airport. Smisek also says it’s more important to modernize air traffic control systems at O’Hare rather than add runways.

It’s hard to imagine how the ill-fated Peotone Airport project, which I’ve written about extensively for the Joliet Herald-News since 2006, can take off given this powerful political opposition. Nevertheless, instead of devoting time and energy to truly beneficial public service activity to mark Earth Day — such as helping clear invasive species from our forest preserves, or taking a stand against continued threats to our air and water supplies — Jackson will be pointlessly turning over a few spadefuls of dirt today in a Will County farm field in a grandstanding attempt to bring attention to his airport fantasies.

Many of those same fields have been purchased by the State of Illinois in an airport land-acquisition plan over the last ten years that has netted 2,471 acres of prime Illinois farmland at the cost of $ 34,014,383 and change (of taxpayer funds) — all without FAA approval of the Peotone Airport project. And with the pool of willing sellers just about dried up, the State has resorted to eminent domain condemnation proceedings against local farmers and landowners in order to stake out the needed land footprint for the phantom airport’s first construction phase.

It’s truly hard to think of a more absurd and unjust example of Illinois’ political follies than this. And yet, the show goes on.

Urban Agriculture in Joliet

The phrase “urban agriculture” might seem like an oxymoron. But this burgeoning social and economic movement is revolutionizing food production, land use, K-12 education, and community development in big cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Oakland. But smaller cities like my hometown of Joliet have an opportunity to vault to the vanguard of urban agricultural innovation, if they just seize the day.

This spring some of my Roosevelt University students and I work Wednesday afternoons at the Chicago Lights Urban Farm, a small but incredibly productive operation in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood on Chicago’s Near-North Side.

Chicago Lights Urban Farm (M. Bryson)

This half-acre oasis of green built atop an abandoned basketball court started as a community garden back in 2002. Now, the Chicago Lights staff, volunteers, and local youth interns produce over 100 kinds of vegetables each growing season from this hitherto derelict property.

The Cabrini-Green farm is thus a vital source of freshly grown, organic produce in a place where walking to the nearest supermarket can entail crossing a dangerous gang boundary. It’s also a training ground for local youth in need of practical job skills; a demonstration site for sustainable agricultural techniques; a place of peace in an area pockmarked by poverty and violence; and a means of reconnecting urban folk to the natural world.

The community garden created by Cool Joliet and the University of Saint Francis (M. Bryson)

Here in Joliet, various groups have jump-started impressive urban agriculture initiatives lately, including the Cool Joliet / USF community garden project on the near West Side, the Joliet Park District’s new organic community garden opening up on McDonough Street on the far West Side; and Pilcher Park’s community/school garden on the East Side.

One remarkable opportunity waiting to bloom sits smack dab in the city’s center: the huge vacant lot located just west of Joliet Township High School’s Central campus and east of Silver Cross Field. Formerly the site of Rendel’s auto-body repair shop, this expansive grassy parcel is now owned by the high school district and has a yet-to-be-determined destiny.

View of the vacant lot owned by JT Central, looking east from the western boundary of the lot toward the high school (M. Bryson)

The school district should think big about what this property could be. One ambitious but exciting option is to create an education-focused urban agriculture enterprise for JT Central students that could start small, but eventually scale up and diversify to achieve educational and social impacts that would be unprecedented within the greater Chicago region.

Imagine students, teachers, and staff just walking outside to the farm next door and doing meaningful physical work growing and harvesting organically produced food. Such projects could be fully integrated with the school’s science, social studies, phys ed, business and health curricula, so that students learn from the ground up the ecological, economic, and social benefits of urban agriculture. Imagine their fresh local produce being donated to local food pantries, sold by student entrepreneurs at the Joliet farmers market, and eaten by students in Central’s cafeteria.

I know — it sounds pretty far-fetched. But then again, is it any crazier than believing you can grow food on top of an old basketball court in Cabrini-Green?

This essay was published as “The Revolution of Urban Agriculture” in the 29 March 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. See more pictures of Joliet Central’s open space and the Cool Joliet / USF community garden. Read about the High School for Public Service Youth Farm in Brooklyn, NY, which began in 2010 as a partnership with the nonprofit urban ag organization, bk farmyards.

The Peotone Airport’s Ongoing Tragicomedy

Thank goodness for the intransigence and political buffoonery of our Illinois public officials. Without their ceaseless bickering, the ill-fated and monumentally stupid Great Imaginary Airport project envisioned near Peotone might actually get off the ground.

As it is, the GIA — known variously as the South Suburban Airport (its IDOT-sanctioned title) and the Abraham Lincoln National Airport (Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s grandiose appellation) — exists only in the misguided minds of transportation technocrats and Pollyannaish politicians.

Farmland near Peotone, IL -- the proposed site of the Great Imaginary Airport (photo: Chicago Tribune)

This bizarre state of affairs stems, in part, from our elected leaders having serious control issues. Ever since I began writing about the GIA fiasco in 2007, debate has raged about who gets to sit on the airport’s board, what to call the facility (see above), and which paint colors should adorn the terminal’s bathroom walls.

What gets overlooked in this petty drama are two things far more important and disturbing: (1) the grand fiscal folly of a bankrupt state spending untold millions to construct an airport 40 miles from Chicago’s Loop that no commercial airline wants; and (2) the grotesque social injustice of government land grabs perpetrated against law-abiding, tax-paying rural landowners within the phantom airport’s ghostly footprint.

The GIA is so far from physical realization that even its most ardent supporters have no idea when it might actually be built. Due to the project’s incompetent political sponsorship thus far, final FAA approval is probably still years away and far from guaranteed. At least I hope so.

Despite those damning facts — and the stark economic reality that Illinois is billions of dollars in the red and cannot even pay its regular bills as required by law — Governor Quinn continues to pledge $100 million of state money for additional land acquisition for the GIA.

That’s not counting the money we’ve already blown. To date, IDOT has spent $34,014,383 and change (of taxpayer funds) acquiring 2,471 acres of prime Will County farmland surrounded by the small towns of Peotone, Beecher, and Monee. But since thousands of acres remain in private hands within the GIA’s footprint, and with land prices at historic lows, IDOT officials have stepped up the pressure on unwilling sellers by commencing formal condemnation proceedings.

Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt at their home outside of Beecher, IL, where they've lived for 50 years (photo: David Pierini/Chicago Tribune)

This means that folks like Vivian and Willis Bramstaedt, who had hoped to retire on their farm near Beecher as they enter their sunset years, are being taken to court and will have their land condemned. What the State wants, the State gets.

“We got the letter sometime late in the fall,” Vivian told me the other day after I gave her a call. “I’ve no doubt in my mind the state will take our land. There’s nothing we can do. It’s just a matter of time now.”

I asked Vivian how people in Beecher felt about the GIA. “Some support it, because they think it will be an economic boost,” she admitted. “But a lot oppose it. The community is split, I suppose. And the thing is, most people can’t even think about it anymore. They’ve had the airport hanging over their heads for so long, they seem to have become numb.”

I ask you this: why is Illinois spending millions of dollars it doesn’t have to take citizens like the Bramstaedts to court and condemn their property? How can such a thing be tolerated by my fellow citizens in the Land of Lincoln? And why don’t any of our elected representatives have the backbone to stand up and state the truth about the monumental waste and injustice of Peotone’s Great Imaginary Airport?

A version of this essay appears as my monthly op-ed column (“Great Imaginary Airport a Boondoggle for Illinois“) in the 23 Feb 2012 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. For information about the airport’s plan, land acquisition data, maps, documents for FAA reviews, etc., see the official IDOT website.

And for additional commentary, check out my previous columns from the Herald-News about the Peotone Airport archived on this site.

The Airport that Just Won’t Die

Like a cold sore or a nasty case of bronchitis, the Great Imaginary Airport near Peotone just won’t go away. Not even with a prescription.

After many months of keeping a low profile, the Illinois Department of Transportation made a news splash in the summer of 2010 by releasing a 194-page report about its pet project to the FAA. It contains numerous rosy projections about future passenger and freight traffic demands meant to justify the airport’s construction.

Buried within its reams of statistics and turgid technical prose, however, was this telling passage on page 10: “The current economic downtown, the most serious since the Great Depression, is a challenge to the aviation industry.  . . . This forecast environment is precarious and it justifies caution in revisiting the assumptions and forecasts for an airport, particularly a new one.” No kidding!

What’s really “precarious,” though, is the state’s ethical position in using any means necessary to acquire private property for the initial build-out of an airport that may never be approved, let alone completed. And with Illinois billions of dollars in the red, it makes zero sense to throw hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars away on such a pathetically misguided boondoggle.

Yet that’s precisely what we’re doing. Ever since IDOT was given the power of eminent domain by the state in 2002, it’s been buying up land in the imaginary airport’s footprint as fast as an Illinois hog gulping his slops. As of July 2010, nearly $33 million have been spent acquiring 2,429 acres of land from (mostly) willing sellers.

Now, with the price of land bottoming out, IDOT is flexing its muscles to begin eminent domain proceedings against citizens with no interest in selling, like Willis and Vivian Bramstaedt, an elderly couple who had intended to retire on their Beecher property.

The Bramstaedts and others are in a real pickle: if they cave in to IDOT’s pressure to sell, they’re going to get far less for their property than they would’ve a few years ago. If they refuse to deal, they’ll have to wage a hopelessly expensive court fight against the state’s condemnation proceedings .

This situation is beyond grotesque. Surely the naked exercise of power in wresting land from law-abiding rural citizens against their will for a project of dubious merit is unjust. The fact that it is permissible under state law does not make it right.

Let’s call it for what it is, then: highway robbery.

This essay appeared as my regular monthly op-ed column in the Joliet Herald-News on 8 July 2010. It was the fourth in an ongoing series of columns on the controversy surrounding the proposed “South Suburban Airport” near the small town of Peotone in Will County, Illinois.

As of Dec. 31, 2010, the State continued to earmark millions of dollars for the purchase of land in the Peotone area, and IDOT has submitted more documents to the FAA for that agency’s review. The latter still had not approved the airport project.