Longer Waukegan Airport runway is not a good reason to take forest preserve land

Trading or selling forest preserve property is bad public policy, and it should happen only in very rare circumstances when the arguments in favor of it are exceptionally compelling.

In the most recent example, plans are afoot to make 52 acres of the 774-acre Waukegan Savanna available to allow for a longer runway at the Waukegan National Airport at the northwest edge of that city. Trees would be cut down for a safety zone. The idea has been floating around for years, but now federal money has become available for the runway.

The final details of the land deal still are somewhat murky, but what we haven’t heard is a clear offer to give the Lake County Forest Preserve District, in exchange, so many acres of such high quality that the deal is undeniably a win-win project.

In a highly developed urban area, there always will be requests for forest preserve land. Often, the proposed uses have value, such as hospitals or schools. But if natural areas are traded away or sold, forest preserves are diminished.

“In the 65 years the Lake County Forest Preserve District has existed, this would be the first time we can find that they would have sold land for a commercial development,” said Wadsworth resident Susan Zingle. “Is it the camel’s nose under the tent? How do they say no to future requests for land for commercial development?”

Forest preserves get requests all the time for a piece of their holdings. A driveway here. A sign there. In perhaps the most notorious decision in recent years, the Cook County Forest Preserve District in 1999 traded away 2.4 acres of high-quality natural land along the Des Plaines River so Rosemont could expand its convention center.

Critics question the need for a longer runway at Waukegan’s airport, saying the money could be better used to improve local schools and roads and to clean up Superfund sites.

“The whole thing is bizarre,” former Waukegan Mayor Bill Morris told us. “This is all about corporate interests wanting to fly nonstop to Asia.”

Airports and nature don’t seem to be co-existing well these days. The Greater Rockford Airport Authority has secured a go-ahead from a second federal agency to build on the Bell Bowl Prairie, which has remained in its natural state for perhaps 8,000 years and is home to the endangered rusty patched bumble bee. On Monday, the Natural Land Institute said its lawyers have sent a 60-day notice of intent to sue to stop the expansion.

In Lake County, the Waukegan Port District, which runs the airport, has not made a persuasive case that the runway project should go forward. Until it does, the idea should go back to the hangar.

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