The Chicago Tribune reports that environmentalists showed up Thursday at a Lake County Preserve District committee meeting to support a proposal to change the Chicago 2016 Summer Olympic bid equestrian events.
A local landowner has offered to donate or sell part of his property so that equestrian facilities could be built there if Chicago is successful in its 2016 bid.
Jay Glenn, president of an organization called Voters for Preservation, who attended the meeting with two other environmentalists, called it a wonderful opportunity.
Some environmentalists say a plan to build an equestrian centre at the Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda could compromise the habitat of sandhill cranes, a threatened species in Illinois, and the site near Tempel Farms that could be sold or donated would be better for Olympic events.
A spokesman for Chicago’s 2016 bid committee issued a statement this week saying Tempel Farms was one of the sites evaluated in the committee’s search for an equestrian facilities. But the equestrian centre planned at Lakewood would provide necessary public access to make the project a success.
