Residents of Lake County north of Chicago were the first to spot the small, odd-looking caterpillar. It had five pairs of blue spots and six pairs of red spots. And lots of hair. That was in 1996. A short time later, oaks started losing their leaves and neighbors watched as entire stands of trees went bare.

Both the hairy caterpillar and the moth it becomes look harmless enough, but officials fear gypsy moths will do $22 million in damage to trees. Photographs courtesy of the Illinois Department of Agriculture

And if other Illinoisans haven't seen this caterpillar yet, they will. The larvae of the gypsy moth is on the move. Officials say they can only hope to slow it down.

In an effort to do just that, the Illinois Department of Agriculture quarantined Lake County last summer, meaning all commercial products that could house gypsy moth egg masses, including lumber and nursery products, will have to be inspected before leaving the county. Still, gypsy moths are notorious hitchhikers, and officials expect them to start showing up in other parts of the state.

In fact, the gypsy moth has been pushing its way westward from the Boston area for the past 130 years. The natural migration pattern of the moth is 15 miles a year, but it gets a lot of help from unwitting strangers. Stan Smith, the ag department's nursery manager, says the moths will attach egg masses to objects left outside, including firewood, campers or boats. They can then establish a new colony wherever the objects take them. So Lake County residents also have been asked to inspect any personal items they move in or out of the county.

While that county is trying to suppress the pest, the ag department has been busy assessing the gypsy

www.uis.edu/~ilissues Illinois Issues October 2000 . 9

The gypsy moth has already been spotted in Illinois. Photographs courtesy of the Illinois Department of Agriculture

moth’s reach in the rest of Illinois. Last month, officials collected and counted some 10,000 moth traps throughout the northern region of the state. The traps use pheromones to attract the male gypsy moth and, once inside, the moths are held by an adhesive that bonds to their legs. When the numbers have been tallied, agency officials will be able to determine where the moth colonies are and how to slow their migration. This study is part of a nine-state “Slow the Spread” program initiated in 1992 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. All five states that border Illinois have signed on. The feds hope to curb an estimated $22 million in damage nationwide and contain the moths’ movements. The price tag for the program is $10 million to $12 million. Mean-while, Illinois has budgeted $202,000 for the effort this year.

The damage can be considerable. Michael Jeffords, an entomologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, says a gypsy moth infestation can defoliate and kill a white oak tree over a period of three to five years. He adds the larvae can kill most evergreens in one season.

In an effort to save trees and kill individual colonies of moths, the federal program focuses on isolated moth populations. By using the pheromone traps, officials can determine the vicinity of a colony and kill it before the larvae have a chance to inflict significant damage. A favored treatment has been Bt, or Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacterial insecticide, and Dimilin, a larvicide. But there are naturally occurring agents that can be used, as well, including Gypchek, a virus specific to the gypsy moth, and a fungus called Entomothaga miamiaga, which has been found in Illinois near Zion and Gurnee, communities in the northern part of the state. Although both Gypchek and the newfound fungus are natural alternatives to pesticides, both have their drawbacks. Gypchek is costly and the fungus appears to slow but not eradicate gypsy moth populations.

Though central and southern Illinois have yet to see gypsy moths, most experts agree that statewide infestation is unavoidable. “All we can do now is prolong the inevitable,” says Charlie Hulme, a research scientist at the Illinois Natural History Survey. “These things are here to stay.”
Ryan Reeves

9 . October 2000 Illinois Issues www.uis.edu/~ilissues

Saving the soil State ag agency close to 20-year "T by 2000" goal "Erosion is a long-term threat which requires long-term efforts at solution, and long-term efforts are not things that the state's political system is good at." — James Krohe Jr. in a December 1981 Illinois Issues article referring to a goal set more than two decades ago to reduce soil erosion in Illinois to a target level by 2000 At least this time, a government agency has proven it can sustain a long-term commitment. The state Department of Agriculture released a report last month that shows the goal set in 1979 has been "96 percent achieved," says ag spokesman John Herath. Over the past 20 years, Illinois farmers have altered the way they till the soil. As a result, they have substantially decreased the amount of black dirt that flows or blows off the fields. Spurred by the 1972 federal Water Pollution Control Act to develop a water quality management plan to control pollutants entering water from so-called "nonpoint" sources such as farm fields (see Illinois Issues, July/August, page 24), the state Environmental Protection Agency in 1977 appointed a task force to monitor the problem. That group, described by Krohe as "largely pro-farming," concluded sediment was the gravest threat to water quality in Illinois and named farm erosion as its principal source. It recommended that soil losses on all Illinois farmland be reduced to the so-called "T" level of no more than five tons per acre per year (the rate of loss at which soil theoretically can be replaced by the natural process of soil building) by the year 2000. "The ag department has done an excellent job of educating farmers about no-till technology and 'T by 2000,'" says John Hawkins, spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau. "Any time the state makes a long-term goal and comes within a hair's breadth of reaching it, it's a pretty historic event." Beverley Scobell

UPDATES Child support, guns, payday loans, gift ban • Lockheed Martin IMS, Tier Technologies and IBM, all major corporations with out-of-state headquarters, beat the deadline for bids to run the state's beleaguered child-support payment system (see Illinois Issues, April, page 14). • Cook County Circuit Judge Stephen Schiller dismissed Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's $433 million suit against the firearms industry, arguing the issue is one for the legislature rather than the courts (see Illinois Issues, April, page 14 and April 1999, page 6). • Last spring, lawmakers authorized tighter regulation of the so-called payday loan industry, and this fall Gov. George Ryan said he endorses tougher rules and scheduled hearings on the matter (see Illinois Issues, March, page 40). • Will County Circuit Judge Thomas Ewert ruled that the entire state law that bans gifts and tightens campaign finance regulations is invalid (see Illinois Issues, September, page 42 and September 1998, page 38). Does she know something we don't? Illinois was awarded $20 million by the feds for being among four states and the District of Columbia that managed to show a decrease in births among unmarried women. In a printed statement, Department of Human Services Director Linda Reneé Baker says that's a testament to service providers and lawmakers. And to Gov. George Ryan. The award was given for reductions in births to unwed women during the years 1995 to 1998. Ryan took office in January 1999. WEBSOURCE Selecting judges With more money going into judicial campaigns, voters are paying more attention and asking more questions. Two Web sites give some background and opinions on the best way to choose judges, one supported by the American Judicature Society, a nonpartisan organization that focuses on judicial independence and selection, and the other by PBS. For a discussion on merit selection of judges, go to www.ajs.org/select2.html. For a history and overview of judicial selection in the United States, see the page at www.ajs.org/select9.html. To read what the judges, lawyers and citizens of the judicature society believe is the code judicial candidates should follow during campaigns, go to www.ajs.org/hot27.html. These pages are maintained by the American Judicature Society. The public broadcasting site has the text and a video excerpt from a program produced for television called "Justice for Sale," described as an investigation into how campaign cash is corrupting America's courts. Go to www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/justice. From there click on links to "How bad is it?" a discussion with insiders; "How did we come to elect judges?" a historical perspective; and "How should judges be selected?" a look at reform efforts. Beverley Scobell

www.uis.edu/~ilissues Illinois Issues October 2000 . 10

As the Justice Department and Congress probe who knew what when in the Bridgestone/Firestone tire recall, all roads in this intensifying national story appear to lead to Illinois.

The Decatur plant where many of the company’s 6.5 million recalled tires were manufactured has emerged as a focal point in the investigation into how faulty tires played a role in at least 103 traffic fatalities and more than 400 injuries.

It’s not an enviable position for Decatur’s residents, but unfortunately a familiar one. Through much of the last decade the central Illinois community suffered labor strife, and last fall the local school board endured protests that drew international attention after it expelled six black high school students for fighting at a football game. This time, the attention is on the city’s fourth-largest employer, and the jobs of 2,100 Bridgestone/Firestone employees hang in the balance.

“We’re just praying for the best and preparing for the worst. That’s what we’re doing. It’s really out of our hands,” Decatur Mayor Terry Howley says. “I think that company is going to be hard-pressed to be in business a year from now from the financial impact this is going to have on them.”

The crux of the safety problems revolve around tread that separates from some of Bridgestone/Firestone’s tires rotating at high rates of speed and causes drivers to lose control. Most of the unsafe tires were on Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles.

Dozens of lawsuits against the company and Ford Motor Co. already have emerged, and some could be consolidated in the federal court district based in East St. Louis.

In late August, attorneys involved in some of the approximately 80 lawsuits came to Decatur to interview four former Bridgestone/Firestone employees about plant practices prior to the recall. The retirees told the lawyers they were required to use outdated rubber to make tires, some tires were never inspected and the quality of work at the plant suffered under the strain of mandatory 12-hour shifts.

Congress also has weighed in on the matter by holding hearings that zeroed in on whether Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford lied and covered up the problem long before it was publicly disclosed last spring by a Houston television station and subsequently by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Two Illinois congressmen — Chicago Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush and Collinsville Republican Rep. John Shimkus — heard testimony from apologetic Ford and Bridgestone/Firestone executives, who early last month appeared before the House Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection.

“After hearing from government officials and Ford and Firestone, I believe that they all let this problem fall through the cracks,” Shimkus says, adding that he was “disappointed that these companies let pride and profits come before public safety.”

The companies were sued over faulty tires as early as 1992 and large numbers of claims stemming from tread belt separation were noticed by Firestone in 1996. Then, in 1999, Ford recalled these tires in Middle East countries.

As Congress mulls its next step, the damage against one of the best-known brand name tires is likely to be enduring and possibly, as Decatur’s mayor and marketing experts suggest, catastrophic.

“I think back to the Tylenol situation,” Loyola University marketing professor Raymond Benton says, referring to the unsolved string of 1980s murders in the Chicago area stemming from the tainted bottles of the painkiller. “They handled it rapidly, decisively, and Tylenol’s brand name survives.

“But for Firestone, as news keeps coming out, it looks like maybe they’ve been aware for a long time. If that turns out to be the case, this could be disastrous for them.”

Dave McKinney
Statehouse bureau chief, Chicago Sun-Times

11 . October 2000 Illinois Issues www.uis.edu/~ilissues

Small communities throughout Illinois will collect millions of dollars in federal benefits over the next decade because more than 42,000 prisoners are being counted in the 2000 census in the towns where they are incarcerated.

Under federal regulations, Illinois inmates are considered residents of these small municipalities, not of their hometowns. As a result, prisons often increase a town's population dramatically.

Census tallies help determine federal and state funding for education, health care, transportation and other public services. Further, prison inmates lower the per capita income of a city, making it eligible for even more federal dollars, including funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

But little, if any, of those funds go directly to prisoners, U.S. Census Bureau officials say. "I'd be stretching to make an argument that there's a direct benefit to the prisoners themselves," says Ed Gore, assistant division chief for field programs for the bureau. According to Gore, the only benefit to inmates is "better infrastructure" such as roads and sewers in the communities where the nearby prisons are located.

The 27 Illinois cities with nearby state prisons, however, celebrate the cash windfall or other, indirect advantages a prison brings to town. (Eight of those towns have not annexed prisons.)

"It enabled a small community to lift itself up by the bootstraps," says Thomas Denton Jr., economic development coordinator for Pinckneyville, a community near the southern end of the state. "In the last three years, we have had $435 million of capital investment in our city limits [because of construction of the prison]."

Construction of infrastructure necessary for the Pinckneyville Correctional Center, which opened in 1998, helped that community move forward with the development of two industrial parks, which, in turn, led to the creation of 1,500 jobs.

There are other benefits, as well. Pinckneyville has a population of about 6,000, including more than 2,000 prison inmates. It receives approximately $200,000 annually in additional revenue due to that population, according to Denton.

While other small towns see similar benefits to having a prison within city limits, Cook County will lose nearly $88 million because its residents make up almost 63 percent of inmates statewide. According to data from the state Department of Corrections, while Illinois inmates spend an average of 1.8 years behind bars, most return to their hometowns after their release.

"Those folks should be counted in the home cities," argues Diane Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Safer Foundation, a Chicago nonprofit that provides services to former inmates and prisoners in work-release programs. "That's where they're going to spend the preponderance of those 10 years [covered by the census]."

But Gore counters that it's not technically feasible to count people in their hometowns. The census, meant to provide a snapshot of the nation's population, is designed to count people where they are spending most of their days at the time of the census.

Most town officials agree prisons don't impose additional local operating costs. And the extra dollars generated through the prison population are usually earmarked for infrastructure and general city operating expenses.

However, some note the state realizes a return, too. "We spend a portion of it on the facilities. We take care of the outside area," says Frank Derickson, mayor of Chester, the southern Illinois community where the Menard Correctional Center is located. Chester's population increased from 5,400 to 8,200 when the prison was annexed a few years ago. And the city expects to get more than $300,000 each year in added revenue due to the prison population, Derickson says.

The city of Pontiac, a community in the north central section of the state with a 1990 population of 11,428, also spends much of its extra federal funding on infrastructure improvement around the local prison. Robert Karls, city administrator, says the town receives $120,000 annually because of the 1,500 inmates housed at Pontiac Correctional Center.

The prison is Pontiac's second-largest employer, with 900 workers. "Number one, they [the prisons] are a major, major employer and a steady employer. They're pretty well insulated from economic downturn," Karls says.

Still, some cities don't attempt to use the added census funds to improve areas near the prison. "It's for the city to use, not the Department of Corrections," says Donald L. Randich, mayor of Crest Hill, home to Stateville Correctional Center in Will County near Joliet. Nearly 20 percent of Crest Hill's population of more than 13,300 lives in the prison. As a result, the city realizes approximately $270,000 annually because of the prison's residents, Randich says.

The additional census funds, coupled with employment opportunities and other advantages — the prisons are generally the largest water and sewer customers in town — have encouraged other cities to woo the Department of Corrections.

Stephen Turner, economic development coordinator for Taylorville in central Illinois, says his city would receive more than $120,000 annually if it annexed the nearby Taylorville Correctional Center.

There are, however, numerous other pluses to being less than a mile from a state penitentiary. Most of the prison guards live in town, and prison work crews are used for city construction and cleanup, Turner says. Taylorville sells the prison water at twice the city rate.

But the prospect of added revenue has ignited discussion about incorporation in the past. "We would see some revenues coming back that were calculated on population," Turner says.
Molly Dugan
Graduate student at Northwestern
University's Medill School of Journalism
and former intern at The Chicago Reporter

www.uis.edu/~ilissues Illinois Issues October 2000 . 13

Shortly before the beginning of the new year, the Census Bureau will deliver the country’s decennial headcount to the president. That will set in motion a reapportionment of the nation’s 435 U.S. representatives. The state legislatures then will draw new congressional district maps within their borders. And Charles N. Wheeler III, who previews this state’s remap for the Almanac of Illinois Politics — 2000, published by the University of Illinois at Springfield’s Institute for Public Affairs, notes Illinois is in jeopardy of losing one seat.

The projection rests on a study by Election Data Services Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm. According to Wheeler, the EDS analysis, based on state-by-state population estimates for 1999 released by the Census Bureau in late December, shows that if Congress were reappor-tioned on the basis of the estimates, Illinois would fall 39,898 residents short of holding its 20th seat.

Overall, the state’s population grew by about 615,000 since 1990, the estimates showed, but the growth was not uniform within the state’s regions. While suburbia added some 487,000 residents, Chicago gained only about 18,000, while downstate grew by almost 110,000.

If the census confirms the trend, the city again would be entitled to only five of 20 congressional districts; if Illinois drops to 19 districts, the lost seat should come from the city. Based on the estimates, the suburbs would be entitled to eight districts and down-state to seven districts, whether the state’s apportionment is 20 or 19.

If protecting minority incumbents becomes a priority in congressional redistricting, the math suggests that two white ethnic congressmen, U.S. Rep. William Lipinski, a Southwest Sider from the 23rd District, and U.S. Rep. Rod R. Blagojevich, a North Sider from the 5th District, could be threatened. Even under a Democratic-drawn map, the danger for either is that so many suburbanites might have to be added to reach the required population that the district’s political complexion would become too Republican.

Another possibility is that the 9th District along the city’s lakefront, now held by U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat, could be moved north and combined with the North Shore’s 10th District, from which [U.S. Rep. John] Porter [a Wilmette Republican] is retiring. Indeed, such a move seems certain under a Republican map if a Democrat — most likely [state Rep. Lauren Beth] Gash [a Highland Park Democrat] — wins Porter’s seat in November.

Thus, given the prevalent demographic trends, Chicago seems certain to lose at least one congressional seat, just as the city gave up one of the two seats Illinois lost after the 1990 census.

12 . October 2000 Illinois Issues www.uis.edu/~ilissues