http://nwitimes.com/articles/2004/11/11/news/lake_county/be971f2fe2f3605986256f4900105b6b.txt

Feathers flying over quiet sanctuary

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Thursday, November 11, 2004 12:40 AM CST

HAMMOND | An angry ruckus is stirring over a peaceful stretch of city lakefront property.

City Port Authority officials want to run a $400,000 walking trail through a 9-acre bird sanctuary to open the woodsy parcel to birders and walkers who already use the trails in front of the adjacent casino and marina.

Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. also confirmed that officials have had conceptual talks about building upscale condominiums on the skinny parking lot connected to the sanctuary's southern edge, but he refused to elaborate.

Critics like Carolyn Marsh say McDermott and Port Authority Director Robert Nelson are putting the interests of tourists and developers ahead of the migratory birds who count on the trees in their long flights over Lake Michigan.

"We do want improved trails, but we don't want the port authority to decide on the foot trails," said Marsh, an environmentalist from Whiting. "We want control of the design and management of it, with the Indiana Natural Resources Foundation."

The Indianapolis-based foundation has final say over any development of the park because it holds a 1996 conservation easement that says the foundation must ensure the city-owned sanctuary is "retained forever in its natural vegetative condition."

Last week, Nelson presented to the foundation the port authority's plan to improve the sanctuary trail. A decision was delayed at least until the foundation's next meeting in April.

"The people here have been going through the trails on the sanctuary for generations. What's the difference?" Nelson said. "These are the trails that the birders use. What we are proposing is to enhance the trails they use, so that the birders will benefit most."

The wooded area, which is composed mostly of cottonwood "weed trees," grew atop a long pile of concrete rubble laid along the shoreline after an oil refinery explosion in the 1950s, Nelson said.

Although the site is small compared to most bird sanctuaries, it became important because of a lack of other green space along the heavily traveled Lake Michigan flyway for migratory birds, said state avian ecologist John Castrale. The site was preserved by easement as part of the overall land deal that legalized the nearby floating casino in the mid-1990s.

Now Marsh and other environmentalists who have contacted the state foundation fear the site is under assault by development pressures.

"I think we have a real war going on here," Marsh said. "(Local leaders) are just not in touch with what is really good for the cities. They're looking for development, because development is good for a quick buck and it will give their friends jobs."

McDermott said it was Marsh who was out of touch with what people want.

"Right now, there is very few people who use that sanctuary," McDermott said. "What the port authority wants to do is invest in it, light it up, fix it up, and put some trails in there so that the public can actually use it."

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