No stadium on wetlands

In today's Northwest Herald there is a column by Don Peasley that includes information about the proposed baseball stadium east of Woodstock. You know the one... the one for which ground was supposed to be broken last spring, so that the stadium would be up and running for the 2010 baseball season?

Don wrote, "A major change concerning development of the proposed baseball stadium-county fairground site along Route 14 across from Wells Fargo and north of Centegra on Doty Road is necessary. McHenry County Community Foundation is scheduled to present the City Council with a proposal Dec. 1 to move the stadium south and east from the original plan. The original site, a wetland, will be preserved."

And further in the article, "Access from Route 14 under this new proposal would be a major concern."

I was concerned from the beginning with the fast track through the City Council. It seemed to me that the Council was blinded by the bright lights from the new field. They rushed the project through with 50 Conditions, which left major decision-making to paid staffers of the City, rather than before the Council.

Didn't anyone check that there were wetlands there when the proposal was pitched to the City even before it got to the Council? Wouldn't it have been reasonable to see the opinion from the governmental authority over wetlands before giving a green light for that project?

But there wasn't any delay in the gravel mining, was there? Just drive east on U.S. 14 from Woodstock and check out the new "mountains". I mean, there is a LOT of dirt being moved there.

Let's hope that the City engineers are there regularly to inspect the mining and to be certain that the depth of scraping (remember... there aren't supposed to be any gravel "pits" there) and protection of the water table are in compliance with the Conditions.