MCC Zoning Vote Meeting Best Show in Crystal Lake Tonight Starts at 7:30

The best show in Crystal Lake and, probably, the best in McHenry County tonight will be the Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission consideration and recommendation on McHenry County College’s baseball stadium.

From the questioning about the precedent approval would set in Crystal Lake’s watershed matters and roads, I’d say that approval is not a sure bet.

MCC is asking for exemption from the current watershed ordinance requirement that only 20% of one’s property may be covered with impermeable materials like parking lots and roofs.

The proposed watershed manual developed by Gary Schaefer of Hey and Associates would allow up to 100% development as long as the property were 4 feet or more above what I will call the “average water table.”

While it seems to me that the standard should be 4 feet above the highest water table, the industry standard refers to a more normal water table.

Schaefer has pretty well convinced most people that the quality of run off from the watershed will not decrease with development.

His reasoning is that two pollutants don’t degrade: phosphorus from fertilizer used on virtually all row crops and on lawns and salt used on roads and parking lots.

Schaefer noted that the quality of Crystal Lake has remained constant over the 20 years it has been measured. He hypothesizes that heavy metals in the gravel that composes Crystal Lake’s watershed is binding to the phosphorus used on the corn and soybean fields

It would seem to me that farm land that is in public ownership, such as

  • the Crystal Lake Park District-owned Christ farm running from Briarwood and
  • Route 176 all the way over the Route 14 near the high power lines and the 57 acres that McHenry County College plans to purchase should not be fertilized with phosphorus fertilizers.

When I brought the subject up to the Crystal Lake Park Board about a month ago, the comment was that all farmers use fertilizers containing phosphorus. I pointed out that the park board could set any rules it desired for use of its land.

Two weeks ago, Larry Lane, a member of the city’s Technical Advisory Committee on the watershed manual asked the park board to pass a resolution urging the city to ban phosphorus-containing fertilizers. He suggested exceptions could be made for lawns where testing showed it was really needed.

I reiterated my suggest that the park board lead by example on its farm land and repeated what I had earlier suggested to city council:

Pass an ordinance banning the use of such fertilizer on lawns in the watershed. Included would be the licensing of companies who fertilize lawns. Infractions of the ordinance could result in the loss of their license to do business, the same way Mayor Aaron Shepley told CVS Pharmacy it could lose its liquor license if it sold to underage kids.

The salt question is the one that is most difficult to deal with and, perhaps, the most threatening.

I suggested to the city that they probably could withstand the pressure from commercial establishments for no or minimum use of salt, but I wondered if they would stand up to a subdivision of new homeowners who wanted more traction during ice and snow.

This is a problem that I think should be addressed any zoning proposal forwarded to the city council by the planning and zoning commission. Mayor Shepley mentioned beet juice during discussions of the watershed manual two weeks ago, but, from what Schaefer has said, I believe he thinks salt is a necessary evil of development.

In Crystal Lake’s watershed such an evil should be banished before irreparable damage is done to our glacial fresh water lake.

7:30’s the time the zoning meeting begins.

Look sharply and you’ll probably see soon-to-be announced Green Party candidate for congress in the 16th district, Scott Summers. He is the newly elected president of the McHenry County College board.

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The top photo shows Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission members Vincent Esposito and Angel Collins conferring during the commission’s meeting two weeks ago.

Below is Larry Lane addressing the Crystal Lake Park Board on September 6, 2007.

And, on the bottom is a picture of some of what is at stake in watershed development. Swimming, sail boating and ducks.


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