Federal case seeks to remove golf course from Benton Harbor park

[Bozita]

Source: Michigan Messenger

Federal case seeks to remove golf course from Benton Harbor park
By Eartha Jane Melzer
04.27.11 | 11:39 am


Opponents of the privatization of Jean Klock Park are hoping that all the attention focused on Benton Harbor as a result of the suspension of local government will bring support for the legal fight to take back the park.

In 2008, amid political pressure from Whirlpool heir and Republican Congressman Fred Upton , the National Park Service approved a plan to allow developers to swap former industrial parcels in Benton Harbor for the pristine Lake Michigan dunes at the heart of Jean Klock Park.

Federal approval of the swap was needed because the National Park Service had spent money on improvements for the park, and it cleared the way for Harbor Shores Community Redevelopment Inc. to build the Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course that now dominates the city’s park.

A group of Benton Harbor residents is arguing that the National Park Service and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers failed to follow environmental laws when they allowed the deal. The residents say that the scope of the golf project was trivialized in order to avoid federal environmental review and that information about the severity of the contamination of the parcels offered in trade for the park was not made available to the public.

Read more: http://michiganmessenger.com/48613/federal-case-seeks-to-remove-golf-course-from-benton-harbor-park

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. It sounds like what they tried to do in Florida recently.

[EC]

2. One of the places I always liked to visit when I would go

to Mich. to visit my sister was the dunes. Here in Kenosha - we had nice dunes at one time....we now have a "rich people" subdivision that is pretty much uninhabitable and empty now because the shoreline is now in their front yards....ruined the whole area.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Associated link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=933384#933410