Asbestos2

Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society - Asbestos

Protecting the Nation's First State Dedicated Nature Preserve

Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society

IAG’s Task Force and UIC, Chicago: Did They Follow the Procedures Espoused by UIC’s School of Public Health Web Site & the IAG’s Sunshine Laws?
No, They Made a Hypocrisy of the Policies These Professors Teach Their Students!

Seven Cardinal Rules of Performing a Human Health Risk Assessment

1. Accept and involve the public as partner.
The IAG’s Asbestos Task Force was closed; this is opposed to the Open Meetings Act that the IAG is supposed to enforce for all government bodies in the state. Dunesland’s president Paul Kakuris; its health and safety and asbestos consultant Jeffery Camplin; and Park Superintendent Grosso were denied access and participation with the group discussions and strategies.

2. Plan carefully and evaluate your efforts.
The IAG’s Asbestos Task Force beach survey did not include a human health risk assessment. The study only evaluated whether asbestos-contaminated dredged sand could continue to be dumped on our beaches!

3. Listen to the public's specific concerns.
After Dunesland was denied participation on the Asbestos Task Force, the UIC School of Public Health and the IAG offered to meet with us. We accepted their offer; they never did set up an appointment. Our concerns have been ignored, despite our requests as a stakeholder for the park.

4. Be honest, frank, and open.
The Attorney General’s office and other state agencies have been caught in several misstatements to the media and the public. The worst act was the Illinois Department of Public Health stating in 1999 that the beaches were safe when no valid, scientific human health risk assessment existed for the public beaches. The public continues to have access to these asbestos-polluted beaches.

5. Work with other credible sources.
The IAG’s Asbestos Task Force was riddled with members who had conflicts of interest. Most, if not all, of the task force members from state and federal agencies, have been involved with the past, failed attempts to downplay the hazards of asbestos found on our beaches, attempting to cover up their past willful lack of enforcement through memos and apparently rigged reports. Some of the agencies themselves were responsible for doing the actual dumping of sand contaminated with asbestos and chemicals on the 6 ½ miles of Illinois Beach State Park’s beaches.

6. Meet the needs of the media.
The Asbestos Task Force has not released any statements since the release of the task force report in June, 2006 on any asbestos activities continually found on our beaches. Several state agencies have been caught lying to the media. IDNR told the News Sun that no friable asbestos existed on the beaches. A week later, IDNR admitted friable (hazardous) asbestos was found by their consultant on the Park beaches.

7. Speak clearly and with compassion.
The silence is the only compassion illustrated by the IAG’s Asbestos Task Force.

What grade would you give UIC and the IAG’s Asbestos Task Force if they were in your human health risk assessment class? This isn’t Pass or Fail!

First Amendment Lawsuit

Dunesland Files First Amendment Suit in Federal Court - by Paul Kakuris, Dunesland’s President

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Aerial view above Illinois Beach State Park looking toward open lagoon Manville Asbestos Superfund site to the south, Lake Michigan a few hundred feet to the left. Park’s state dedicated nature preserve is in the lower left corner.

Picture at the top of this page shows the industrial canal overflowing into the nature preserve

Dunesland filed its First Amendment suit in federal court in Chicago because Dunesland’s Loop attorney, Donald L. F. Metzger, felt that this was a federal issue, not a state issue. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) blocked Dunesland from distributing our Asbestos Safety Tips warning flyer, in 2004. IDNR had removed their own public asbestos warning flyer that they had promised to distribute because that flyer put attention on the asbestos which they wanted to ignore. We attempted to fill the gap with our own flyer; IDNR tried to block Dunesland’s efforts in order to cover-up their own incompetence and bungling. The fact that IDNR did not want the flyer distributed at the park is indicative of their own lack of concern about public health and safety. They are more concerned about covering up the reasons why the asbestos is at the park and on the Illinois shoreline in the first place, which is the negligence of state officials in discharging or facilitating the discharging of asbestos at our beautiful park and on the rest of the Illinois shoreline.

For further information and documents about Complaints, Press Releases, Reports, and Resources, please go to the Complaints / Reports and News Room.

These main bullets are topics taught by the professors at the University of Illinois, Chicago to students learning about how to do proper human health risk assessments. The sub-bullets are the procedures that were actually followed by UIC and the Attorney General’s Asbestos Task Force for the beach studies on asbestos.

Asbestos Strewn over Vast Area at Camp Logan

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