Update May 26, IIPD Lake Calumet Master Plan 2050
Carolyn A. Marsh
Hi birders,
A Lake Calumet area resident and I attended the Illinois International Port District board meeting May 20, and expected to learn the results of the Open House held by the Calumet Metropolitan Agency and Planning on May 2. There was no report. The Master Plan will determine developments in the Chicago Wilderness area and designated Audubon Lake Calumet Important Bird Area.
What we now know is that the Port District board will vote to adopt the Master Plan at the June 17, 8 a.m. board meeting and that public engagement ended May 20. We still don’t know the Steering Committee members and stakeholders that made the decision for a RV park on Eagle Peninsula.
There have been many public meetings over the years. Actually, over decades, since the Calumet Open Space plan was approved, The process is to invite select organizations and segregate and silo them from each other so decisions are made without the whole plan under discussion. There are separate studies in phases that make recommendations that are changed without adequate community engagement. The RV park in the peninsula was revealed at the April 22 board meeting.
Some eagle history: Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had planned for the city to lease Whitford Pond in Southeast Chicago from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District for a 24/7 regional swat police training center next to the O’Brien Lock and Dam and across from Hegewisch Marsh. Then I discovered in the Pond’s Great Blue Heron Rookery, a pair of Bald Eagles building a nest on top of an old heron nest. Many joined a campaign to stop the firing range and we did and saved Whitford Pond and nearby bird habitats. However, the Whitford eagle nest was eventually abandoned.
Weeks later in 2012-2013 the pair built a nest on the end of the north wooded peninsula in the port district’s Finger District (photo). Unfortunately, the pair didn’t fledge chicks and weeks later the nest was vandalized and disappeared.
The inaccessible wooded peninsula, however, functions as critical year round roosting grounds for regional eagles and hawks. Visitors to Big Marsh are delighted to see Bald Eagles since the peninsula is across the entrance (photo).
Please request the RV park be removed from the Master Plan and for the peninsula, north finger, be preserved as eagle and natural habitat.
https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/programs/lta/iipd-master-plan
Dustin Calliari dcal...@cmap.illinois.gov
Erik Varela <er...@iipd.com
Respectfully,
Carolyn A. Marsh, Whiting, IN, bi-state bird conservationist.
Suzanne Coleman
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