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THE TRUE NATURE OF THE LANDFILL AS PROPOSED BY FRIENDS OF THE PARKS
This advocacy group, made up of a small group of individuals who do not reside nor work in our area, is proposing to create landfill expansion of the park from at minimum Hollywood to Howard. The design and project features are generally known.
Shortly, a firm will put the views of “friends” into a plan drawing, surely in multi-colored pen and ink for maximum visual effect. That plan will then be promulgated to the public as an idyllic series of landmasses (all colored in green) supporting a number of activities that have already been pre-determined by the “friends”. Most likely, a roadway will be a prominent feature of any plan.
What the “friends” won’t mention, and can’t mention, because their technical engineering capability is non-existent, is that these idyllic expansions of the park will be massive structures requiring hundreds of millions of cubic yards of dredged material, secured by thousands of square feet of steel sheet piling, rubble mound stone, the detritus of torn down building and roadways and more.
The chart below (scroll down) showing water level fluctuations of Lake Michigan from 1918 – 2002 evidences, the lake is subject to severe extremes. The chart, shown in meters (1 meter is slightly longer than 3 feet) reveals that the range from high water to low water is about 6 feet. Currently, we are near the low water level, about 5 feet below the record high recorded in the 1980’s.
So, when you look at the lake and beaches today, remember that Lake Michigan water levels are at near historical lows. In contrast, recall in the 1980’s that Sheridan Road flooded due to wave overtopping; that Hollywood Beach was only a fraction of the size it is today; that no beach existed between Hollywood and Thorndale.
Park expansion as advocated by “friends” is alarmingly ignorant of the real magnitude and cost of the structures that will be necessary to accommodate their single minded plan while at the same time accommodating the forces of nature.
For example, that peaceful bike path (to say nothing of roadways) that is pictured in the advocate’s minds, which you will see shortly, will not run along the elevation of the current beaches here: if it did, it would be destroyed within a few years, or within a few storms by the wave energy and run-up. Rather it would have to rest on a landfill that was at least 10-12 feet above the existing ground level, at the shoreline, and 16-20 feet above that level if it was placed lake ward in deeper water offshore. For perspective, note the elevations of the walkway between Hollywood and Foster beach (which itself is at an elevation that overtopped on a regular basis during storms).
All design work for these massive structures would have to consider high lake levels. The structures would have to be designed to be able to withstand wave overtopping, the expansion of wave energy exploding on their vertical facing, erosion caused by runoff and environmental degradation caused by contaminants running off into the Lake. For perspective look at the size of the structures immediately behind the tennis courts and golf course, and these structures are in shallow water.
This is what Friends of the Parks and their partners are willing to foist upon us. A massive land mass consisting of rubble mound stone, steel sheet piling, material dredged from Lake Michigan, broken up concrete and fill from construction sites, which will take years to build, years to settle before it can be developed) and untold hundreds of millions of taxpayer money to finance. (The Chicago shoreline reconstruction project, a simple rebuilding of the existing shoreline structures has been ongoing for 15 years and has almost tripled in costs from the original estimate of $180 million).
Friends of the Parks arrogantly attempts to engender support for a plan which is folly on its base and one which intentionally attempts to skirt the real questions of feasibility of implementation. For that they should be held to account and revealed for what they are: a small advocacy group more than willing to impose their views on others.
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