Alert! Keep Public Land in Public Hands! Help Protect Pyramid State Park!

Some Illinois legislators, bureaucrats and entrepreneurs have been plotting behind the scenes to once again try to take public land for private gain. State Senator David Luechtefeld, the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), the Toney Watkins Company and others have cooked up a plan to take 2,000 to 5,000 acres of land from Pyramid State Park in order to build a resort recreation complex. Senator Luechtefeld has introduced an amendment to HB 29 to give up 2,000 acres of Pyramid State Park - land that is fully reclaimed and that has a 250 acre lake in exchange for a partially reclaimed 2,000 acre parcel of strip-mined land that has acid mine drainage. This reminds us of the developer's scheme to lease the public land around Kinkaid Lake and then sell lake front homes. The same battle cry applies - "Keep Public Land in Public Hands!"

This proposed land swap is in no way fair to the public. Quite a sum of money has been spent on reclaiming the Arklands section of Pyramid State Park. It also takes years for stripmined land to recover. The land now supports many rare nesting grassland birds, tens of thousands of wintering ducks and geese, bald eagles, many shore birds and many recreationists. The land that Toney Watkins Co. would swap for the Arklands parcel would not support the rare grassland birds, and does not have the habitat for all of those ducks and geese. It also has only small ponds, with many of them polluted by acid mine drainage - not suitable for shore birds, ducks or bald eagles. It takes a lot of money and time to recontour and revegetate land, as well as to take care of the acid mine drainage problem. This is not a fair trade, even though the Director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has declared that it is fair and equal.

This is also a dangerous precedent. If we allow this swap to take place, what park will developers covet next? Will they want part of Giant City State Park? Ferne Clyffe State Park? Trail of Tears State Forest? In addition, such a swap would destroy the public trust. How can we feel confident in spending money to buy, restore, and manage public state land, if that land can be traded or sold off by some pandering politician at any time - just by attaching an amendment to a popular bill in the legislature.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Call your Illinois state representative and senator and tell them you oppose the privatization of the heart of the Arklands at Pyramid State Park. Also, tell them that you support a compromise resolution that would direct the Illinois DCEO to provide help and expertise to the Toney Watkins Co. to find private land that they could buy in Southernmost Illinois for their proposed recreation resort. Call your Rep's and Senator's by going here http://ilga.gov to get the contact information for your state senator and representative.