Since last we wrote about the misguided efforts of the Lake County Board to host the 2016 Olympic horse events in the center of Lakewood Forest Preserve, much has happened. Unfortunately, no decision has been made to actually move the games to a less sensitive place, but the Board may have fumbled the Olympics into DuPage County hands.

In case you don't know the issue, the Lake County Board gleefully snagged part of the (proposed) 2016 Chicago Olympics, specifically the equestrian events. Negotiating in secret and approving unanimously with a single public meeting, they chose the Lakewood Forest Preserve as the location for this massive event, expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people to a rural Lake County forest preserve known for many endangered animals and plants. The most famous residents (due to a headline article in the Tribune) are a nesting pair of Sandhill cranes, possibly the most beautiful and endangered bird in Illinois.

To be clear, we like the Olympics, but we think it harmful to place such a gigantic event in, or even adjacent to, a natural area like Lakewood FP. Were our Lake County officials and Chicago to change their planned location to an industrial area or to a developed equestrian center (like Tempel Farms in Wadsworth), we would support them to make this the greenest Olympics possible.

Apparently our outrage about this has been heard, both by the Board and by the Chicago Olympic people. During a July 25 County Board meeting, both director (Doug Arnot) and chairman (Patrick Ryan) of Chicago 2016 spoke words of understanding regarding this issue. Among other things, Arnot said, "Environmental assessments will be looked at all the way down the line. If we were to determine that [this] would have a [negative] impact ... our partners wouldn't want to go forward, and we wouldn't want to go forward."

During this meeting, some of the Board members braved a few good comments, suggesting that maybe we should think about this a little more. Then, about a week later, the Forest Preserve District announced that they were rerouting the cross-country trail away from an oak forest and Sandhill nest. (Though the cranes likely will be scared off when bulldozers grind up the land 100 feet away or starve when the 15,000 seat stadium is built on their foraging grounds.)

Maybe it was too little, too late to paper over the obvious controversy. Chicago has enough trouble competing with the likes of Madrid and Rio de Janeiro—they don't need to compound things through bad local publicity and a reputation for poor environmental stewardship. So in October, Chicago started discussing an equestrian move to a different Lake County preserve (Raven Glen), or out of the county altogether, to ready-made horse facilities in DuPage County.

DuPage has 3 equestrian facilities available, Danada, St. James Farm and Lamplight (which hosts many international events), making one wonder why they weren't the original choice. (Lake County offered a forest preserve with no equestrian facilities.) It may be that Olympic co-sponsor Abbot Laboratories—headquartered in Lake County—had some say in handing out potential opportunities. Unfortunately, as Chicago football fans know, if you fumble the hand off you may be taken out of the game.

No decision has been made, leaving us today where we were a few months ago—the Lake County Board still fully intends to bulldoze and develop hundreds of acres of the Lakewood (or Raven Glen) Forest Preserve for the 2 week long 2016 Olympics.

It's important that we make our thoughts heard now, while this issue is still in discussion—perhaps at a tipping point—by writing to or calling these people:

1.                   Your Lake County Board Member. See: http://www.co.lake.il.us/officials/board.asp

2.                   Doug Arnot, Chicago 2016 Committee 180 North Stetson Suite 1500 Chicago, IL 60601 Ph: 312.552.2016 E-mail info@chicago2016.org

3.                   Chicago Tribune, Letter to the Editor 435 N. Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60611-4041 email: ctc-tribletter@tribune.com

4.                   Lake County News-Sun--LTE 2383 N Delany Rd Waukegan, IL 60087 email: CSelle@scn1.com

5.                   Daily Herald--Letters to the Editor fencepost@dailyherald.com

To get more involved, or for more information, please write me at LEMARVET@GMAIL.COM.