While I`m flattered that the Tribune still believes I am influential enough to have ”killed” the Lake Calumet Airport project (Sept. 17), I cannot accept either the credit or the blame.
If Lake Calumet is dead, it died because it was a poor site for a new airport. Otherwise, I could never have convinced a majority of my colleagues to vote against the proposal.
It promised to be the most expensive public works project ever built in Illinois, with a minimum cost of $11 billion. With neither enough land nor enough airspace, the site was inadequate on the ground and in the air. It was anenvironmentalist`s nightmare, combining both the destruction of a fragile ecosystem with the challenge of cleaning up one of the country`s worst hazardous waste sites.
Experts in environmental cleanup estimate that 4 billion tons of waste have been dumped in the area, enough to keep two incinerators burning 24 hours a day for 12 to 16 years. The location at the southern tip of Lake Michigan virtually assured that the airport would be shut down by ice and snow in the winter and fog and rain in the spring and fall.
Most important of all was the callous disregard of those who live and work on the proposed site. Building Lake Calumet would have required the forced removal of more than 50,000 people from their homes, shutdown of 500 businesses and loss of thousands of jobs.
The Chicago region needs a third major airport. That is something I wholeheartedly agree with. But the lesson to be learned from Lake Calumet is that airports should be sited by experts, not politicians.
