Don Durbin wistfully recalls his early years on the
family farm. He stalks through the tall, windswept grasses and points to
areas where his children once brushed ponies and petted hogs.
But the century-old farm has lost much of its charm
since the city of Springfield seized it nearly 30 years ago.
There are still about a half-dozen wooden structures
on the property, some dating back to the early 1900s. But they are all on
the verge of collapse.
Giant holes gape in the roof of the cattle shed; it
looks as if a bomb has torn through what was once a horse barn.
“The city hasn’t been a good
steward,” Durbin says.
Since the early 1970s, the city of Springfield has
gobbled up thousands of acres of land from dozens of families for the
purpose of creating a second lake. But the lake was never built, and much
of the property the city acquired, located southeast of Lake Springfield,
was left to languish.
Today the city appears poised to renew its efforts to
build a second lake but must contend with at least two opposing factions.
Environmentalists say that at least some of the land,
which has been allowed to run wild for decades, should be designated a
nature preserve.
“There’s a great opportunity for a
high-quality park,” says Bill Crook, a leading member of the Sangamon
Valley Group of the Sierra Club.
And then there are landowners such as Durbin who
quietly hope for the opportunity to repurchase their properties. “We
had this ground taken against our will,” Durbin says.
“We’d like to have our land back.”
City officials roll out a laundry list of reasons
plans to build Hunter Lake — named for the now-deceased city
utilities commissioner John Hunter — have stalled for an astounding
four decades.
They blame complex permitting processes and
disagreements over whether the city even needs an alternative water source.
Springfield Mayor Tim Davlin has sent mixed signals
on the subject.
In 2003, just five months after being elected to his
first term, Davlin said: “I don’t think that Hunter Lake is
going to happen.”
But last Wednesday, in his “State of the
City” address, he hinted otherwise: “We are approaching a final
decision on the future of the city’s water supply,” he said.
“In the future, Springfield can become a regional water supply for
the central-Illinois area.”
Davlin, who did not respond to interview requests for
this article, has said that a decision will be made later this year on
whether Hunter Lake will at last become a reality.
There are several reasons to believe that the project
will move forward.
Todd Renfrow, general manager of Springfield-owned
utility City, Water, Light & Power, will soon release the latest in a
long series of reports regarding the status of Hunter Lake, also known as
Lake II.
In a recent interview with Illinois Times, Renfrow said he was
nearing the end of a tedious process to win approval for the project from
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Lake II remains a very strong option that is
supported by the city,” Renfrow says.
Renfrow has refused to provide any details of the
study, which may be released to the public later this month.
Consider also the sheer magnitude of a major
construction project set to begin this summer in the Hunter Lake area.
Sangamon County officials are overseeing construction
of a new $3 million bridge to span Horse Creek, which would empty into
Hunter Lake. The bridge will be 310 feet long and 40 feet wide —
nearly twice the dimensions of the current one — and rise an
additional 30 feet .
“We’re building it above the new lake
level” says Jim Marsaglia, a county engineer. “We don’t
want to build it and then have to replace it when the new lake is
built.”
Formal planning for Hunter Lake began in 1965, a
decade after a major drought reduced water levels in Lake Springfield by an
alarming 13 feet.
During the last three decades, the city has spent
some $4 million on engineering studies and $18 million to acquire 7,100
acres of land needed to build a second lake, according to William Murray,
regulatory affairs manager at CWLP.
And the city hasn’t finished its land-buying
spree. Murray says the city still must acquire another 660 acres for Hunter
Lake.
Through the years, when landowners have resisted, the
city has sued, using its power of eminent domain to seize control of the
properties. That’s how Durbin lost his 50-acre farm on New City Road
back in 1976.
Durbin is among about a dozen original landowners who
have since leased their properties back from the city for a monthly fee. He
says that he once tried to organize his neighbors to protest the
city’s acquisitions. Today his attitude is more defeatist:
“They got all the ground; they moved everybody off; they may as well
go ahead and build Hunter Lake.”
Anyway, he says, the city has dragged its feet for so
long that there’s hardly anyone around left to organize.
“Everyone’s gone,” Durbin says.
“I’m one of the few original people left out here.”
This article appears in May 5-11, 2005.
