116 Hamilton Place Vernon Hills, IL 60061-1041 December 19, 1999
	Sierra Club Woods & Wetlands Group

The tollway delivered another issue of the LCTIP "News" to my mailbox yesterday. It contains most of
the same half truths we're accustomed to seeing.

Particularly aggravating is their superficial presentation of wetlands and natural areas impacts. While they openly criticize suggestions that we improve existing roads and see what happens to congestion, these graphs show that they want to build Rt. 53, and see what happens to our environment. The bar charts erroneously compare further impacts to wetlands already damaged by existing roads, to initial impacts to pristine wetlands by Rt. 53. As the road slices through the wetland homes of endangered species (that's what ADID means), they only measure the acres in the right of way, not the entire wetland.

The charts also obscure the fact that damage from urbanization around existing roads has already occurred, but that urbanization around the new Rt. 53 corridor will multiply its environmental impact into the future. We call this urban sprawl, and the wetlands impacts are only the tip of the Rt. 53 iceberg.

LCTIP also skews the results of 450 comments they "received," many of which were form letters from their own tollway proponents. They have never reported in their "News" the receipt of 3000 petitions signed by residents opposed to Rt. 53. This is reminiscent of the Tollway’s suppression of the results of the last Environmental Impact Statement they paid to have performed. When they don't like the outcome, they ask again later.
 

Evan L. Craig Chair