CAN GREEN BE IN AGAIN? The public appears to have lost interest in cleaning up and conserving our environment by Jennifer Davis Illinois' water is much cleaner than two decades ago, but 25 percent of our public wells are within one mile of a landfill. Illinois' forests and lakes are healthier, but the Illinois River is choking on sediment. Illinois' native plants and wildlife are reappearing, but our wetlands are shrinking. "But" is a word environmentalists want to drop from their vocabulary. At the beginning of this decade, there was some hope the word would disappear. But that hasn't been the case. Indeed, while progress has been made in protecting the state's air, land and water, much is left to be done. At the same time, the heady days of the "Green Movement" are gone. The public appears to have lost interest in the environment. In 1988, the environment was the No. 1 concern of voters across the country, according to a Galiup poll released after the presidential election that year. Membership in national environmental organizations swelled. Grocery stores bulged with environmentally safe consumer goods. National newspapers made much ado about the ozone. In April 1990 — 20 years after the first "environmentalists" in their earth shoes, hot pants and mood rings celebrated the first Earth Day — most everyone agreed we were ushering in a new decade of consciousness. "This is the movement of the '90s," prophesied one activist in Illinois Issues. Nevertheless, at the tail end of the decade, the momentum to clean up and conserve appears to be ebbing. "This definitely hasn't been the decade for the environment," says Lynne Padovan, director of legislation for the Illinois Environmental Council, which lobbies the General Assembly on behalf of more than 70 environmental groups. "Granted, we have had some very significant and spectacular successes, but it seems hard lately to [get] people [to] treat environmental issues with any credibility." Last year, the environment didn't even register on voters' long list of concerns, according to a Galiup poll released after the presidential election. (The No. 1 spot went to education.) The "green" label on consumer goods has all but disappeared. The national media have forgotten the ozone. Ironically, the biggest problem faced by the environmental movement now, activists say, may be that it was too successful. "It's easy to feel good about [recycling] cans and bottles," says Ken Dunn, director of The Resource Center Inc., a Chicago- based, nonprofit environmental group. Too easy. "We're recycling more now than we ever have, and we're not even making a dent. I, too, felt at one point that recycling was the answer. That was a dream." Recycling, regulations on air, water and land pollutants, more set-asides for prairies and forest preserves: These successes have contributed to the public's belief that our job is done. "Americans tend to jump from one issue to the next," theorizes David Thomas, director of the Illinois Waste Management and Research Center, a research arm of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. "We addressed a lot of the short-term things. We've seen a lot of the worst hazardous sites cleaned up." But have we? Since 1984, about 15,000 leaking underground storage tanks filled with petroleum or hazardous chemicals have been reported. As of April, only 4,843 of those have been cleaned up, according to the Illinois Department of Environmental Protection. These sites, 50 percent of which the state fire marshall estimates have leaked, are leaking or will leak, likely constitute the most widespread source of groundwater contamination nationwide. About 43,000 underground tanks remain in Illinois, and an April audit by the state auditor general's office criticized Illinois' cleanup record keeping as outdated, understaffed, underbudgeted and back- logged. Indeed, the U.S. EPA is considering withdrawing its support of Illinois' program. On the flip side, the federal government has praised Illinois' efforts to meet some of the requirements of the national Clean Air Act. And late last 30 / June 1997 Illinois Issues year, Illinois was one of six states recognized for new technologies in pollution prevention and waste management. The state also continues to make slow, steady progress on land preservation, including development of Site M, a 24-square-mile recreation and conservation area in Cass County, and in prairie restoration, including the 19,000-acre Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie on the former Joliet Arsenal site. And the dying Illinois River system has gotten renewed attention of late. In 1994, Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra formed the Illinois River Strategy Team, a task force of business, conservation and agriculture leaders who released their 34-point restoration plan earlier this year. The river also has Gov. Jim Edgar's support. This year he asked for $438.9 million in federal funds over 15 years and National Priority Area designation for the waterway. Last month, the General Assembly passed the Illinois River Watershed Restoration Act, creating a permanent council to coordinate restoration efforts. Nevertheless, environmentalists point out, these initiatives were taken only after years of study. The controversy over corporate hog farms is the next issue activists expect to be analyzed to death. Critics argue the farms, some of which raise thousands of hogs, threaten to pollute the state's water. After approving a law to regulate the facilities last year, lawmakers were reluctant to revisit the issue immediately. They signed off on the regulatory rules this spring and want time to study the matter further. Padovan has been asked to participate. "I predict we'll beworking on this for several more years. [Lawmakers] are going to wait for something bad to happen, and then it will get fixed. It's another case of Illinois swatting the fly after it lands." Jack Darin, field representative of the Sierra Club's state chapter, agrees Illinois has taken "some very small, slow steps" toward regulating megahog farms. "We need to take big steps, quickly. Other states are acting." Environmentalists have been frustrated as well by the debate over deregulating the state's electric utilities. They fear a renewed reliance on coal that would set back the state's air quality. "As nuclear power plants are phased out, there will be a need to replace them with something, and we fear [utilities] will find the cheapest way possible," says Padovan. Environmental progress — which environmentalists worry has taken two steps forward, one step back — has not kept pace with need, Padovan says, because the public, and therefore lawmakers, has moved on to other issues, including education and welfare reform. Yet some activists see a silver lining. "The '90s may not have turned out to be the decade for the environment, but a lot of good things have happened, particularly at the local level," says Kevin Greene, who spent years with various Illinois environmental groups before becoming manager of the lEPA's pollution prevention program a year ago. "Sometimes it's hard to quantify the benefits we're getting, but it's easy to see the costs." Greene sees the potential for rekindling the movement at the local level. The problem with that, says Thomas, is that it was "easier when people saw the earth was on fire, when they saw polluted rivers burning." Now, with the more obvious pollution under control, it's harder to keep the public's interest. Dunn of The Resource Center laments: "I can organize a volunteer [environmental] activity and attract 50 people, or I can organize an AIDS walk and attract 10,000." Over the past 20 years, Dunn's organization has transformed 200 abandoned Chicago lots into community gardens. Progress, yes, he agrees. But "a total 70,000 vacant lots currently exist in the city, and 400 more are created every month. "
Illinois Issues June 1997 / 31
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