Kane commissioners disappointed with Brunner backlash

Kane County Forest Preserve Commissioners say they're puzzled by letters from constituents concerned about possible gravel mining at Brunner Forest Preserve. The letters, they said, are laced with misinformation about a process that hasn't even started.

The controversy surrounds an idea recently mentioned by commissioners to mine the gravel from a portion of the 700-acre Brunner Forest Preserve in Dundee Township. The district would then sell the gravel for a potential multimillion-dollar profit and use the proceeds to fund forest preserve improvements. One such improvement would be filling the gravel pit with water to create a lake for fishing and boating.

Forest Preserve President John Hoscheit said opponents of the plan are contacting state and local conservation agencies with inaccurate information to try and vanquish the plan. Most disturbing among the accusations, Hoscheit said, is the idea commissioners have already locked the plan in place. "All of those allegations are really absurd," Hoscheit said.

Hoscheit said he's preparing a formal response, but other commissioners got the ball rolling for him.

Commissioner John Fahy attacked the opponents as being against anything that doesn't involve only passive use of open space. He said the group of people spreading misinformation are the same people who opposed the dog park at Schweitzer Woods and other similar development of forest preserves. Fahy said the group is led by Dundee Township Supervisor Sue Harney, who said last week she was "skeptical about the whole idea."

"I'm disappointed that another governmental body, another governmental leader would take such drastic action," Fahy said. "We've worked hand in hand with that township. We have a duty to investigate these opportunities for our constituents. We have a tremendous amount of underprivileged kids on the north end of this county that don't have the opportunity to go to lake houses up in Wisconsin or Minnesota. Let's not, as a board, be intimidated by people who are using words like, 'Vote them out of office.' "

Commissioner Phil Lewis said he won't be intimidated by people questioning his motivation. He said the idea is in its infancy and was born out of the plan to build the Longmeadow Parkway through an easement that runs through the Brunner property.

"The idea is that if there's going to be a road built, and it's going to be built on the easement through the Brunner property, and there's gravel on the Brunner property, then from a citizen's standpoint in Kane County, I'd be pretty hard-pressed to explain to my constituents why I spent several million more dollars hauling gravel to the site where there exists gravel, particularly when we can build such a nice recreational feature in the form of this lake," Lewis said. "It's very prudent for us to investigate this. My motives are very clear - to improve the forest preserves and utilize the assets that we have at our control."

Commissioners promised a thorough public review of the idea before locking any plan into place.