Group seeks permit for asbestos fliers at Illinois Beach

Dunesland Society: Files federal suit against state DNR
By Frank Abderholden
June 20, 2006

ZION — An environmental group is asking the federal courts to force state officials to allow them to pass out fliers warning of asbestos dangers at Illinois Beach State Park.

The Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society filed the suit seeking an injunction to force the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to drop its ban on posting or distributing a "richly detailed flier." It also seeks an injunction against individual state officials who were involved in banning the flier in the first place.

The suit also seeks compensatory damages from those individuals. The group originally filed the suit in state court, but withdrew it and refiled in federal court because it was a more appropriate arena for First Amendment issues, said attorney Donald Metzger.

The group contends the state is infringing on members' First Amendment free speech rights. The 55-year-old environmental group was instrumental in creating the park by pushing to have it designated as a nature preserve by the state, a first in the nation at the time.

But relations between the group and the state soured noticably eight years ago after the state was responsible for having sand contaminated with asbestos- containing material and asbestos fibers dumped on the beaches in the north end of the park and offshore on Lake Michigan as part of a beach nourishment program.

Asbestos is a well known cancer-causing mineral when inhaled that was used in the manufacture of a number of products through the years.

The group has continually pushed for authorities to have an open process where the sand, air and water at the park are properly tested to determine the extent of the asbestos threat at the state's most-visited park, although attendance has been slipping the last few years.

In May 2000, the Illinois DNR, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Public Health committed to a regular program of picking up asbestos debris from the six-mile beach, producing a flier to inform the public and creating display cases that showed various examples of what asbestos-containing material looked like so visitors could avoid it and if they saw it, alert park authorities.

The fliers were discontinued because of printing costs and the display cases also disappeared.

"Yet when the state reneges on those commitments and Dunesland seeks to fill that gap with an informational flier, prepared by a certified asbestos expert, that is based on and quotes extensively from asbestos warnings from state and federal agencies, our fliers are banned without any explanation to us," said Paul Kakuris, Dunesland president.

"It is not only a high-handed outrage and a threat to the public's health, but it is also another effort by state officials to cover-up the role they played in the pollution at the park's beaches," he said.

Some of the sand used for beach nourishment was dredged from areas near the Johns Manville Superfund site in Waukegan and the Midwest Generation power plant, which abuts the Manville site.

Source: The News Sun Online