Wyss: Island plans trip taxpayers’ triggers
It’s not a great time to announce that $500,000, and likely much more, in state money is being earmarked for a Chain O’ Lakes island renovation project.
Consider the backdrop: Daily reports centering on anticipated state budget cuts that threaten to devastate numerous social service programs. In the midst of the teeth-gnashing comes news of the Fox Waterway Agency’s plans for Trinski’s Island in Pistakee Lake.
Those plans include using dredged material to re-create the island’s former 43-acre footprint, and to make this island and the water surrounding it attractive to man and beast – and fish.
Commenters on the Northwest Herald’s online version of the story were critical, which isn’t surprising. The state is billions of dollars in debt. Gov. Pat Quinn would like a state income tax increase. Taxpayers, many of whom are struggling in the worst recession in a generation, are fed up.
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| This image shows the Fox Waterway Agency's plans for Trinski's Island. Click on the photo to enlarge. |
However, it is worth looking at a couple of factors: 1.) The bigger picture where this now publicly owned island is concerned; and 2.) How these particular funds can and cannot be spent.
First and foremost, the island will be a place to deposit roughly 300,000 cubic yards of dredged material, waterway agency officials said.
That’s a lot of space for sediment that has been rendering the Fox River and Chain O’ Lakes increasingly shallow, impeding boating and causing serious flooding to occur more rapidly, more frequently, and with less rain.
“The Trinski Island project isn’t just the development of the island,” said state Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, who designated $500,000 in member initiative money for the project. “It’s also the dredging of the Fox River and several of those lakes, which will help alleviate some of the flooding problems we have been and are experiencing.”
An additional $1 million is available for the project from a Lake County legislator, Althoff said.
She added that this money must be spent on capital – i.e., construction – projects. It cannot go toward any agency’s operating expenses. She could not, for example, give it to Family Services for programming.
Fox Waterway Agency Executive Director Ingrid Danler said she, too, hoped that people would consider the long view.
Without dredging, sediment pouring into the Chain from the north threatens to clog the system, closing the faucet on dollars derived from waterway users.
“The Chain O’ Lakes and Fox River in Lake and McHenry counties are the busiest inland waterway in the United States, per acre, and a huge economic engine,” she said.
It’s understandable that taxpayers would at first decry this seemingly frivolous expense.
And something must be done to stop the flow of Wisconsin runoff.
But Trinski’s Island will provide more than a place to moor.
• Cyndi Wyss is a Northwest Herald community editor. She can be reached at 815-526-4534 or cwyss@nwherald.com.
