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IAS Opposes Lake Airport, 
Lists Array of Objections 
Chicago about to make the greatest engineering blunder of the century? 
‘is rhetorical question is asked by Raymond Mostek, president of the 
inois Audubon Society, referring to the fantastic Jules Verne proposal 
r an airport in Lake Michigan. 
The Illinois Audubon Society, with a score of scientific, conservation 
d civic organizations, led by the Open Lands Project, opposes the airport 
the lake for these among other reasons: 
1. A land site surrounded by a growing population on all sides is cer- 
tainly preferable to a site surrounded by water that can be reached 
from only one direction. 
2. Operations at a water-based airport would suffer from safety hazards 
due to weather conditions and to conflict with operations. of other 
area airports. The professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization 
at a recent meeting resolved to oppose construction of the lake airport 
because of “severe air space conflicts with present operations at O’Hare 
International Airport.” 
3. Noise hazards, particularly to residents of Chicago’s densely populated 
South Side, would be extraordinarily severe. 
4. Air pollution from the visible contaminant of jet aircraft (carbon 
smoke) would be unsightly, if not actually a health hazard. 
5. Runoff water would necessarily flow or be pumped back into the lake 
and could hardly have failed to mix with pollutants such as kerosene 
and oil that spills at all airports. And what satisfactory arrangements, 
if any, for handling airport sewage have been provided? 
6. Scientists agree that pollution, actual and potential, of the South end 
of the lake is the worst of any section of any of the Great Lakes, 
since it is a veritable cul de sac without free out-flowing drainage. The 
airport which would be four miles in diameter, with its miles-long 
access causeway, would act like a draw-string narrowing the channels 
for winds and currents, compounding this pollution. 
7. The chief sea-lanes used by cargo ships serving the South Shore of 
the lake would be partially blocked, requiring circuitous routes at 
greater expense and with possibly less safety. 
8. Great inconvenience would result and safety would be jeopardized for 
skippers of pleasure craft sailing from South to North Shores and 
vice versa. 
9. The cost of such an airport in the lake would be far more (some 
engineering experts say twice as much), and the time needed for 
construction much greater, than one of similar size at a safe distance 
south of O’Hare and about the same distance from the loop. 
The IAS president charges that against this array of objections to the 
rport-in-the-lake proposal, really only one reason has been put out in 
; support—that it would bring some economic advantages to Chicago’s 
ywntown hotels, stores and other commercial firms. This, he protests, 
a dubious argument because it would increase in-and-out-of-city traffic 
hich already outstrips suitable access routes and threatens eventually to 
rangle the Central City. 
