Chris Bentley

Climate change could worsen Chicago floods

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 20, 2013

Mar. 20, 2013

Climatologists predict rainstorms will become heavier and more frequent in Northeastern Illinois, but many Chicagoans don’t need mathematical models to know flooding is a problem.

Azarina Cerkic, 37, was living in the 5100 block of North Bernard Street in 2008, when a record-setting storm dropped more than 6.5 inches of rain in one day. (That record has since been broken.) The North Branch of the Chicago River rushed over its banks in Albany Park, dumping more than seven feet of water into Cerkic’s basement.

“There was so much water it flipped my washer and dryer right over, effortlessly,” she said. “And those are some seriously heavy things.”

Cerkic and her husband had moved to the neighborhood from nearby Portage Park only three months earlier. Worried about the rising water, she said she called 311 on Friday and was told it would be fine.

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Mapping Chicago's green groups

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 16, 2013

Mar. 16, 2013

Chicago has no shortage of “green” organizations and advocates, but sometimes it can be difficult to see the forest from the trees. Since January 2011 a group called Accelerate 77 has worked to catalogue and connect the city’s community gardeners, environmental justice groups, energy efficiency entrepreneurs and environmental initiatives of all stripes throughout Chicago’s 77 designated community areas.

What can the Bridgeport farmers market learn from Roseland’s Developing Communities Project? That’s up to them to decide, but a crowd-sourced effort to map hundreds of neighborhood programs should help them connect.

The group is currently holding meetings across the city, soliciting ideas from environmental organizations for ways to help the many disparate groups work together. A West Side meeting at Garfield Park Conservatory Thursday counted among its attendees West Garfield Park community gardeners, 29th Ward Ald.

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Obama calls for Energy Security Trust

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 15, 2013

Mar. 15, 2013
President Barack Obama visited Argonne National Laboratory Friday (full text of his speech here) to tour its research facilities and call on Congress to flag oil and gas money for research that could help wean the nation’s vehicles off oil.
 
The idea is a clearer vision of the Energy Security Trust he outlined in his most recent State of the Union address. Obama proposed diverting $2 billion over 10 years from oil and gas leases on federal land to pay for clean fuel research.

 

Citing an Environmental Protection Agency report released Friday, Obama recounted recent gains in fuel efficiency.

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Madigan, Mell push for two-year fracking ban

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 15, 2013

Mar. 15, 2013

As legislation to allow and regulate hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in Illinois’ New Albany Shale moves through the state legislature, House Speaker Michael Madigan has called for a two-year ban on the controversial fossil fuel extraction process so scientists can study its potential impacts on public health and the environment.

Rep. Deb Mell’s HB 3086 in the House and SB 1418 (sponsored by Sen. Mattie Hunter) each call for a statewide moratorium on fracking until a task force conducts “a thorough review."

Fracking blasts loose previously inaccessible stores of gas and oil in rocks deep underground using water, sand and a proprietary mix of chemicals.

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New Orland Grasslands trail stirs environmental concerns

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 13, 2013

Mar. 13, 2013

The Forest Preserve District of Cook County released plans Monday for a trail and bike path in Orland Grasslands, but some environmentalists say the project could jeopardize the recovery of a fragile ecosystem by fragmenting land used by migratory birds.

Though site volunteers said they felt their concerns were largely acknowledged by the District’s design team, they remain apprehensive about the trail’s southeast segment, which bows around the west side of a large pond that fronts onto La Grange Road.

“Every single inch matters,” said Pat Hayes, Orland Grasslands’ site steward. “What we’re dealing with is not just a pretty place. This is sustenance for ecosystems and species that have nowhere else to go.”

A letter from the Bird Conservation Network cited several bird species known to nest in the Grasslands — Henslow’s Sparrow, Dickcissel, Grasshopper Sparrow and Bobolink — that could be affected, as well as shorebird species known to stopover on the site during their migration.

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How 'open' is the Millennium Reserve?

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 7, 2013

Mar. 7, 2013

During his announcement Friday that federal and state agencies would commit an additional $6.8 million towards Millennium Reserve projects, Gov. Pat Quinn repeated the claim that the massive Southeast Side restoration initiative constituted the “largest open space project in the country.”

While it is undoubtedly ambitious, and unique in a few ways, the “open space” project is not exactly that. After all, the initial project area (the “Calumet Core”) is home to nearly half a million people, as well as 2,000 acres of industrial land.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources prefers the more accurate, admittedly less sexy, term “one of the largest collaborative urban open space projects” in the country.

At 140,000 acres, the Calumet Core certainly is a huge tract of land.

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'Devastating' bat disease reaches Illinois

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 6, 2013

Mar. 6, 2013

Scientists have confirmed the arrival of the fungus known for causing White-Nose Syndrome, a disease blamed for more than 5.7 million bat deaths since its discovery in 2006.

“It’s devastating news,” said Julia Kilgour, a bat ecologist with the Urban Wildlife Institute.

Its arrival was predicted years ago, in light of the disease's unrelenting march through bat populations as far west as Oklahoma and as far north as Québec.

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Hacking back invasive species and crime

By: Chris Bentley | Mar. 5, 2013

Mar. 5, 2013

Brenda Elmore grew up in West Pullman, literally a stone’s throw from the Whistler Preserve in Riverdale, Ill. Even though she has always lived within walking distance of some of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County’s largest holdings, she learned from a young age to stay away from them.

“I used to be scared to come anywhere near it,” Elmore said.

She says her parents told her that Jason, the machete-wielding killer from the Friday the 13th movies, lived in the Forest Preserves. In reality, they were worried about gangs. The far south side forest preserves’ seclusion and proximity to areas troubled by gang activity made them ideal dumping grounds for bodies. And a dense underbrush of white poplar, buckthorn and purple loosestrife — all invasive species — obscured any view of the interior from the road.

As she cuts back invasive species with a chainsaw in Kickapoo Woods, it’s clear Elmore, 50, has come a long way — and so have the Forest Preserves.

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