[BCNnet] wetlands work announced for Calumet Initiative in Chicago

[Randi Doeker - Chicago]

>From today's Sun-Times


Randi Doeker


....................


>From airport to wetlands 


S.E. SIDE | Calumet nature area once tagged for 3rd field to be expanded 


September 23, 2007

BY ART GOLAB <mailto:agolab at suntimes.com>  Staff Reporter
agolab at suntimes.com 

Seventeen years ago, Mayor Daley wanted to pave over wetlands on the
Southeast Side to make way for a third airport. But on Saturday, he
announced that the city would spend more than $2 million to help restore and
expand wetlands in the same area. 

The new effort will make up for wetlands that will be destroyed in the
ongoing O'Hare Airport expansion. 

"The O'Hare modernization program is contributing toward wetlands
development in the Calumet region as part of its program to leave
northeastern Illinois with more wetlands than it had before the O'Hare
project began," said the mayor. 

At a news conference near the Hyde Lake wetlands near 127th Street and
Carondolet Avenue, the mayor and other city officials outlined a plan that
will add 15 acres of wetlands either to Hyde Lake or nearby Heron Pond. 

Work to begin next year

The 36-acre Heron Pond, located along the Calumet River, is home to one of
the state's largest rookeries of black-crowned night herons, a
state-endangered species. 

An environmental study will determine which area will be restored, with
restoration work beginning sometime next year. Also, an environmental center
is scheduled to be built in the area by 2009. 

The newly restored wetlands will be of a higher quality than the ones being
filled in because of the O'Hare project, according to Alan Mammoser,
executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. 

The two city-owned sites are parts of the Calumet Initiative, which
designated 3,900 acres for open space and 3,000 acres for economic
development. 

'You don't forget it'

Asked about his earlier efforts to put an airport on the Southeast Side, the
mayor said, "That's why you're flexible. When they didn't want it and the
governor pulled the issue, then you modernize O'Hare Airport." 

Of the Southeast Side, he said: "You don't forget it. You reinvest in there
. . . just because something happens, you just don't get upset and run
away."

 

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