Is the proposed south suburban airport all but dead, even as the state continues to buy up homes and farms for the project?
The state's long-proposed Chicago-area "third airport'' near Peotone in Will County is on the far back burner, if it is on the stove at all, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood indicated this week in Chicago, prompting an angry response today from U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.
"No one has ever talked to me about it,'' LaHood said Monday during an airport conference in Chicago. "I have been in this job now 22 months. Gov. (Pat) Quinn has talked to me a lot about high-speed rail, about O'Hare, about roads, about bridges. That subject (the south suburban airport) has never come up, and it's never come up with any member of the (Illinois) delegation either.''
Wrong, said Jackson, who made available a March 2009 letter to him on the south suburban airport from Lynne Osmus, a U.S. Department of Transportation official, on behalf of LaHood.
"Secretary Ray LaHood has asked me to respond to your February 24 letter about the proposed South Suburban Airport in Illinois,'' Osmus wrote. "I appreciate the energy and enthusiasm you bring to this issue.''
Jackson said he met "at length'' with LaHood in Washington on Feb. 25, 2009 along with officials of the Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission that Jackson helped create and an airport developer who has plans to build the airport with private funds.
"I also spoke with Secretary LaHood this morning,'' Jackson said in a statement today, "and he acknowledged our 2009 breakfast meeting at the U.S. Department of Transportation and the fact that we have spoken many times over the years about the airport in both his role as Secretary and during his time in Congress.''
Jackson expressed frustration that Quinn, who is on the record supporting the concept of the proposed airport to relieve congestion at O'Hare International Airport and Midway Airport, has not given the final go-ahead for the project.
There are still a number of hurdles. The Illinois Department of Transportation has not yet submitted an airport master plan for the Peotone project, and it still owes other studies and paperwork to the Federal Aviation Administration.
"The goal is to get a completed master plan to the FAA by the end of the year,'' said IDOT spokesman Guy Tridgell.
FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said the agency is "working collaboratively with the state as they develop their plan for the airport. More documents need to be given to us by the state before we can start our environmental analysis, so no timetable has been created yet.''
One of the biggest hurdles, apart from the FAA review, is political. Jackson's Abraham Lincoln National Airport Commission and Will County officials are battling over who should have control over the airport.
IDOT envisions a starter airport covering about 5,000 acres and including one runway and a passenger terminal with about a half dozen aircraft gates. The airport would be expanded, based on demand, over time.
More than 2,400 acres have been acquired by the state to date, according to IDOT.
LaHood and other officials said any third airport remains a low priority. The focus is on O'Hare expansion, he said.
"The leaders of the state and the leaders of the city have put a lot of emphasis on O'Hare, on Midway and certainly other airports in the state,'' LaHood said Monday. "We take our cues from the leaders.''
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said conditions have changed significantly since the idea for the Peotone airport was proposed by former Gov. George Ryan.
"I think that conversation has changed some,'' Durbin said. "It's changed because the expansion of communities and residences toward the south has slowed down. It's slowed down because of the state of the economy and the state of the real estate market.''
"Secondly, most of the theories behind a third airport involve some form of private funding. That too is in question,'' Durbin said, "because of the current state of the global economy, in terms of funding that kind of operation. So I'm not going to push it off the table, but I am going to tell you what is smack dab in the middle of the table is finishing O'Hare and doing it the right way.''
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