News-Sun obtains preliminary environmental impact report for Waukegan airport runway extension ahead of potential summer hearing

Ahead of a potential public hearing this summer, the News-Sun has obtained a preliminary draft of an environmental assessment detailing possible impacts of a proposed runway extension project at the Waukegan National Airport.

The project is estimated to cost $186 million as it is proposed, and would see the transfer of more than 52 acres of Lake County Forest Preserves District land to the Waukegan Port District, which operates the airport.

The News-Sun gained access to the preliminary draft assessment — conducted by a consultant at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration — after the Lake County Forest Preserves District and Waukegan Port District denied public records requests from the newspaper earlier this month.

Initially scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2022, the preliminary draft has more than 1,250 pages of technical environmental and aviation analysis that decision-makers, including the members of the Lake County Forest Preserves District Board, will rely upon to guide their thinking around the project.

If forest preserve board members eventually approve of the project, the Waukegan Port District plans to create an $11 million trail connection through parts of the Waukegan Savanna, while some of the acreage would be fenced off as an extended safety barrier at each end of the newly built, 7,000-foot runway.

Airport and business officials say the proposal is all about safety, and ensuring Lake County’s financial health for years to come.

“The Waukegan National Airport provides jobs and vital tax revenues for Lake County,” airport general manager Skip Goss wrote in an email. “Throughout the runway safety project, we have closely followed the Federal Aviation Administration’s process for evaluating the need and impact of project.”

Meanwhile, environmentalists and residents staunchly opposed to the project allege that a 1,000-foot runway extension is effectively a pet project for business elites who want to take more international flights without pesky fuel stops, and that the project would negatively impact the communities of Waukegan, Beach Park and Zion, which have higher rates of asthma than most of Lake County.

Former Waukegan Mayor Bill Morris was the latest figure to join the calls of environmentalists condemning the plans, which have inched along since the airport and Lake County Forest Preserves District entered into a nonbinding letter of intent regarding the land sale in 2017.

“My concerns relate to the public health, the environment, the financing and environmental justice,” Morris told the forest preserves board at its May 10 meeting. “The forest preserve district should not participate in a plan to increase health risks for Waukegan children and adults. According to your Lake County health department, Waukegan already has 130 to 144 poor air quality days a year. Flying heavier, fuel-laden jets which have a larger pollution imprint than commercial flights per (person) will actually create a serious environmental problem in Waukegan.”

Hearing on the horizon

As Lake County’s business and environmental communities battle for the favor of 19 forest preserves board members, who also make up the Lake County Board, airport officials told the News-Sun a public hearing — or a workshop, as an FAA spokesperson called it — could be hosted by the airport in July.

Goss said that cooperating agencies, including the Lake County Forest Preserves District, have submitted their comments on the preliminary draft environmental assessment, which was not released to the public in February or early May as previously estimated.

“The FAA is methodically working through the comments and incorporating them into the Draft Environmental Assessment (DEA),” Goss wrote in an email. “The goal is to release the DEA to the public by the end of this month and hold a public hearing in mid-July.”

Forest preserves board members were able to review and make comments on the documents this spring during a 30-day window in which the assessment was available for in-person review at the Lake County Forest Preserves’ general offices in Libertyville.

Because the land swap deal is strongly favored by airport officials over alternative plans that could see the airport close for up to three years during construction, forest preserves board members have the say, along with the FAA, over whether the proposal becomes a reality.

Forest preserves board President Angelo Kyle deferred comment to forest preserves staff, who he said have more expertise on the particulars of the proposal.

Ty Kovach, the executive director for LCPFD, told the News-Sun that public records requests were denied because the assessment draft was, “not the forest preserve’s to release.”

Kovach referred to the forest preserves district as a “simple property owner,” and had previously discouraged the News-Sun from requesting the assessment draft, instead pointing to the port district. Both agencies denied ensuing records requests, citing the preliminary nature of the assessment.

“I really hope you get your facts straight on this,” Kovach said on May 17. “I really hope you get your facts straight because you’re going to look really silly if you don’t.”

Tony Molinaro, the FAA public affairs officer for the Great Lakes and Central Regions, said Monday that the agency deemed the report releasable and then obliged to share the preliminary draft assessment through a public records request the agency received.

“It’s a document that the public should be able to read, so no problem with us releasing it,” he said.

Molinaro said that once a public hearing or workshop is held, public comments will be worked into the environmental assessment. He emphasized it would be premature to conclude what would follow public discussion because the FAA’s ensuing steps will depend on what comments are expressed.

After review

Marah Altenberg, a Buffalo Grove Democrat who represents District 19, said the agencies conducting and reviewing the environmental assessment “made this a more difficult process than it had to be” by not allowing members of cooperating agencies electronic access.

“The fact that there was not information that was able to be shared digitally was kind of surprising,” Altenberg said. “It’s unusual in this day and age that you would have to only be able to go to one location to review a report.”

Esiah Campos, a Round Lake Beach Democrat who represents District 16, voted in the 16-3 board majority in February to enter into a nonbinding memorandum of agreement to further the process of information gathering as the environmental assessment was prepared for public release. But he agreed with Altenberg, who voted against the memorandum, that the conditions of review made it difficult to absorb the new information and enter comments.

“It’s hard to do your due diligence, and again it’s a 1,000-page document,” Campos said. “I don’t know about you, but you can’t read a Harry Potter book in one sitting.”

District 2 member Adam Schlick, R-Wauconda, called the preliminary draft assessment “robust” and said the information was helpful, though he said he would definitely, “have to study it more once it’s out.”

“I understand the concern about using our land, but I think there could be some benefits to both sides,” Schlick said. “I just want to hear everybody shake this out.”

District 6 member John Wasik, D-Grayslake, said the preliminary draft environmental assessment left him with plenty of questions about the proposal.

From what Wasik gleaned from the review period, the airport could see more corporate versions of the Boeing 737 jets and the larger Gulfstream jets commonly used today, which he said he believes is, “really the core reasoning why they would need a longer runway.”

He said the assessment does not go into details about the projected emissions increase in relation to a bump in the number of annual flights by certain plane models, nor does it illustrate the number of trees that would be cut down and how or whether they would be replaced.

“I have expressed in my comments that this has not been a transparent process, and I’ll still stick by that,” Wasik said. “Really, it’s up to the port authority to demonstrate to the public that this is going to have minimal environmental impact. Frankly, I don’t believe it, and they certainly have not proved it in this report.”

District 3 member Ann Maine, R-Riverwoods, said she understands the frustrations of environmental groups in opposition, but emphasized that the proposal is, “not a done deal.”

Maine encouraged patience as the process plays out, pointing out that the forest preserves district has previously shut down proposals by the airport.

“We have a history of turning them down,” Maine said. “There are a lot of other proposals over the years and we were like, ‘Nope, nope.’”

Susan Zingle, a Wadsworth resident who had her public records requests for the assessment denied earlier this spring, lamented the “obstructionist nature” with which she believes the Lake County Forest Preserves District has handled the matter, in addition to the project’s supporters.

“The FAA has something at stake here, and they (released the preliminary draft),” Zingle said. “Why in the world the forest preserve feels they have to hang on tooth and nail and not share information is beyond me. Why they would treat the public like that? I don’t know.”

Sandy Hart, a Lake Bluff Democrat who chairs the Lake County Board and represents District 13, said that because the FAA complied with a public records request to share the information, the Waukegan Port District or another involved agency should post the preliminary draft assessment for any interested member of the public to read.

She said she understood why the cooperating agencies did not want to release the preliminary draft, but once it was released in some form, “everybody needs to see it.”

Lobbying out of the public eye

Multiple forest preserves board members told the News-Sun that the chief executive officer of Lake County Partners — an economic development nonprofit which supports the proposal — attempted to discredit the News-Sun’s March reporting on the contents of the airport’s forecast document, which is included in its entirety in the preliminary draft environmental assessment.

Emails obtained through public records requests show that the organization’s chief executive officer Kevin Considine, who spoke in favor of the project in February and was interviewed for the March News-Sun story, emailed board members the day after the story was published to blast environmentalists’ claims in the story that the project would primarily benefit corporations, rather than the public, as “both factually inaccurate and misleading.”

Forest preserve board members told the News-Sun that Considine followed up with board members one-by-one by phone to push back against reporting on the contents of the forecast document, which detailed that “direct input from corporate users” of the airport showed that, “the existing primary runway length precludes aircraft from being able to efficiently reach desired domestic and international destinations.”

One board member raised concerns about board members’ ties to Considine and Lake County Partners because five current Lake County Board members, who make up the forest preserves board as well, are also members of the nonprofit’s Board of Directors.

Kyle, Hart, Altenberg, Schlick and Jessica Vealitzek each hold seats on the nonprofit’s board.

Representatives from some of the most high-profile companies operating in Lake County, including Baxter International, Walgreens and W.W. Grainger, also hold seats on the nonprofit’s board.

Tax filings from 2021 published by ProPublica show that Considine was paid more than $215,000 for his work for the organization.