Waukegan airport runway proposal clears hurdle despite opposition

The Lake County Forest Preserves Board passed a resolution Tuesday approving a memorandum of agreement with the Waukegan Port District regarding a proposal to construct a new, extended runway at Waukegan National Airport.

Board members voted 16-3 in favor of the resolution to approve the memorandum, an early hurdle for the $186 million runway project, which has faced fierce pushback from Lake County environmentalists who label the move a “gross example of drastically misplaced priorities.”

The 19-member Lake County Forest Preserves Board is made up of the same members as the Lake County Board, who represent the same districts for both.

Airport general manager Skip Goss spoke in favor of the project ahead of the vote, and said the Federal Aviation Agency has mandated that the airport and the Waukegan Port District, its owner, show the agency it has “at least a framework of the agreement” before it releases the results of an environmental assessment for review at public hearings.

“It is only after that (FAA) decision (that) we would be back before you with a proposal for a formal agreement,” Goss said. “This project is urgently needed. Without it, we risk closing the airport for most of two to three years, and nobody wants that. It’s time now to move this forward.”

The vote followed a lengthy public comment session featuring pleas from more than 15 business and environmental leaders, as well as significant confusion from board members about whether Lake County Forest Preserves would be bound to the memorandum or if it could still back out of the project.

Forest preserves executive director Ty Kovach clarified near the end of a barrage of questions that the forest preserves district’s attorneys had consulted with the FAA’s attorneys and come to an understanding that an environmental impact study would be shared after its completion this spring and once the memorandum was approved.

The Waukegan National Airport has been inching for years toward an agreement to purchase 52.3 acres of land from the Lake County Forest Preserves to clear the needed space for the project, which will also require the acquisition of dozens of residences and a handful of businesses, but environmental groups and residents have voiced staunch opposition.

Doug Ower, a longtime Zion resident and member of the Sierra Club’s Woods and Wetlands Group, said board members should be informed of alternative options to reconstruct the runway without using public land that could be included as part of the FAA’s environmental assessment. He added that he sees jets fly low over Zion “all day long,” and wanted to know what the plans were “for Zion so we don’t get all the noise, or the emissions, or the pollution.”

“ (A) 7,000-foot (runway) is not a safety requirement,” Ower said. “Not only do the residents of the surrounding areas lose 53 acres of public lands, it’s an underserved area. If you look at the (Lake County) map, that far northeastern corner doesn’t have a lot of forest preserves.”

Midwest Sustainability Group executive director Barbara Klipp compared entering the agreement to, “putting an offer on a house you’ve never seen in order to get more information so you can negotiate.”

“You as a forest preserve district are about to take an action that is opposed by all of the environmental groups in Lake County,” Klipp said. “That’s a big deal. And maybe you don’t care. Maybe you don’t care that the environmental community is losing faith in you and trust in you.”

Board members expressed that the vote was merely an initial step that would trigger the FAA’s release of an environmental impact study that would allow the public and politicians to more clearly examine the project’s merit.

District 17 member Michael Danforth, R-Fox River Grove, said he was comfortable supporting the memorandum as “part of our due diligence” to advance toward a conclusion one way or another about the project.

In January, Goss told the News-Sun construction could begin on the project in 2026 and the airport could remain open during an anticipated three-year construction timeline.

He said there is “absolutely no need, nor any market” for cargo or commercial passenger operations at the Waukegan National Airport because of an abundance of air travel capacity in the region, and an unwillingness from private companies to invest in infrastructure needed for operational expansion.

Goss said that, “it is true that other airports operate on shorter runways. However, aircraft operators there must reduce their carrying capacity to operate safely.”

He added that provisions of the airport’s plan include the installation of trails connecting the Waukegan Savanna to other area trail networks, and restoring parts of the savanna currently invaded by species like buckthorn, “to its natural savanna state, which it is now not.”

The mayors of Waukegan, North Chicago and Beach Park entered public comments in support of the agreement, while the Wadsworth Village Board previously expressed its opposition.

Beach Park Mayor John Hucker said a state project to widen Green Bay Road — and add bicycle and pedestrian accommodations from Sunset Avenue to Russell Road at the state line — has been “postponed and/or delayed at least due to the uncertainty about the plans for the airport expansion.”

“This has had a negative effect on potential business growth in the area because it’s tough to get people to invest money into an overcrowded road with uncertain airport growth adjacent,” Hucker said. “So, we’re very happy to see this project moving forward, and we know our residents will have an opportunity to weigh in during the public hearing process and that this is a preliminary step that needs to be completed.”

Also in opposition are environmental and sustainability groups such as Openlands, Midwest Sustainability, Clean Power Lake County and the Lake County Audubon Society.

As the meeting stretched well into its third hour, District 3 member Ann Maine, R-Lincolnshire, and District 9 member Mary Ross Cunningham, D-Waukegan, were among a handful of board members to indicate they were still undecided, though they ultimately cast their votes with the majority.

Maine joked she was “going to offend everyone” because she was still struggling to make her decision, spurring laughs in the public gallery.

“A yes vote today is not, I don’t think from anyone here, a yes vote for, ‘yeah, we’re going to do this,’” Maine said.

“If we were to go ahead with this and do it, nothing would be done lightly,” Maine added. “We’ve said no many times. We say ‘no’ more times than a mom of a 2-year-old.”

District 18 member Sara Knizhnik, D-Vernon Hills, prompted the round of questions about why the board needed the memorandum in order for an environmental impact study to be released before voting no along with District 6 member John Wasik, D-Grayslake, and District 19 member Marah Altenberg, D-Long Grove.

Wasik told the News-Sun he opposed entering into any agreement about the land without an environmental impact study being released to the public, calling it a “deeply inappropriate” move.

“I’m not comfortable assigning anything when the end game is giving up public land for private purpose,” Wasik said. “That, to me, doesn’t ring true to our mission to preserve and restore forest preserve land because we’re not doing either of those things. We need to plant more trees. This is a runway extension that is going to enable larger jets to come through here. What is the carbon dioxide impact of that?”

Before voting against the resolution, Altenberg said she was, “very concerned about the mission of the forest preserves and what we’re here to do as stewards of the forest preserve.”

Wasik, who used to chair the Forest Preserve District’s Planning Committee, said that justification by proponents of the runway extension has changed over the years. He added that while he has no problems with the airport, board members are still not clear on “the complete picture.”

“None of this was presented to the public, or to residents, or people who would be directly affected by this,” Wasik said. “There’s five schools around there. There’s at least three golf courses, several churches. I don’t know that any of those were contacted and (told), ‘Look, this is going to be the impact on your community’ before they asked us to sign an agreement to start talking about selling the land.”

An earlier version of this story misattributed comments made by Beach Park Mayor John Hucker.