Saturday, Sept. 4, 2004
| By Tim Zorn / Post-Tribune staff writer |
HAMMOND — Land along a lake usually is most sought-after for homes.
But not always.
“The closer you get to the lake, the more the population starts to decline,” urban planner Gregg Calpino said of the Lake Michigan shoreline in Lake County. “We don’t usually see that in other areas.”
A century ago, industries got the first dibs on most of that shoreline.
The Marquette Greenway plan aims to reverse that.
Proposed by U.S. Rep. Peter Visclosky, the plan will aim for opening at least
75 percent of the shoreline to free public use.
“Lake Michigan is everybody’s lake,” Visclosky told the region’s Quality of Life Council at its quarterly meeting Friday. “It also is one of the great resources of the planet Earth.”
The Marquette Greenway will look for ways to develop new uses for unused or abandoned industrial land, preserve natural areas and create more parks and recreational areas in the 60-square-mile area — roughly, between the lakeshore and Interstate 94, from the Illinois line to Portage.
The plan will not move industries away.
But when plants along the lakeshore close or move their operations, he said, it will determine “the highest and best use” of their land.
About a hundred people — audience members and council members — listened to Visclosky and Calpino outline the plan’s goals.
Several contributed ideas.
They said the plan also should address pollution, health and racial justice issues.
Industrial pollution affects the health of people who live near the industries, Hammond resident Betty Balanoff said.
Ogden Dunes residents say polluted air still drifts over the lakefront.
Tina Rongers of Hebron said social issues need to be “woven tightly” into the plan; Karen Freeman-Wilson of Gary called that “imperative.”
But Whiting resident Carolyn Marsh worried that encouraging lakefront visitors would crowd out the few remaining natural areas.
“If you want to bring more people to our area, you’re going to have problems,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good plan.”
Friday’s meeting wasn’t just talk.
Lori Kaplan, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and Margaret Guerriero, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in Chicago, signed a cooperative agreement on dealing with polluted land.
The agreement means neither agency will second-guess the other’s decisions on brownfield cleanups, Guerriero said.
Also, the Quality of Life Council passed a resolution recommending that a regional agency — either a new one or an existing one — be empowered to implement the Marquette Greenway plan.
“This says it’s not good enough to have a plan; you’ve got to move it forward,” Indiana University Northwest professor Dan Lowery said.
Reporter Tim Zorn
can be reached at 648-3073