WELCOME BACK
Cormorants fly in with environmental
message: Anti-pollution laws work

Taking aim at onerous government regulation is in vogue these days. But a high-flying visitor due in Illinois — or over Illinois — in the next few weeks should give pause to a few trigger-happy lawmakers in Illinois and Washington as they zero in on environmental rules and laws that business has long viewed as burdensome. Look skyward almost anywhere in Illinois during April and May, and you're likely to see an environmental success story: large black, long-necked birds flying in a wedge pattern migrating from the Gulf Coast to nest in the state's fresh inland waters. What looks like a goose to the untrained eye is the double-crested cormorant. Twenty-five years ago, it looked as though the cormorant's goose was cooked. In 1974, the large water-birds had only 12 nests in two trees along the Mississippi River in Carroll County. The cormorant was listed as endangered in Illinois as early as 1971.

To the untrained eye, the double-crested cormorant looks like a goose. The waterbird, sketched here by artist Olin Harris, nests in the state's fresh inland waters. Twenty-five years ago, it was endangered here.

But by last summer the state's bird watchers were talking about how soon they might be able to remove the double-crested cormorant from the threatened species list. "There's so many of them now that you can see them flying over the state Capitol in the spring," says Vern Kleen, avian biologist for the Department of Natural Resources.

The double-crested cormorant is a living symbol of the effectiveness of pollution regulation.

A first cousin to the pelican, the double-crested cormorant is the only one of five cormorant species in the country to leave coastal marine areas in the spring and nest along inland rivers and lakes. For bird watchers who know the difference, the cormorant is more closely related to the anhinga, or snakebird, of the southeastern United States. It is about the size of a small goose, and flocks of them fly in lines much like ducks and geese (though the cormorant does like to sail from time to time). It has a long bill with a hook at the end and an orange throat. The cormorant feeds almost exclusively on fish.

Its diet was its downfall 25 years ago when DDT and other chemicals coursed through the state's lakes and rivers. Like the bald eagle and other fish-eating birds, the cormorant suffered reproductive failure, and its numbers dropped dramatically.

As the water got cleaner, the cormorants built more nests. By the late '80s the birds had established five colonies with 124 nests, with new populations in northeastern Illinois and along the middle Illinois River. When the nest count reached 466 in five colonies in 1994, the Endangered Species Board changed the cormorant's status in Illinois from endangered to threatened. By last summer the cormorants had established colonies at Carlyle Lake in Clinton County. The 1995 nest count was up to 676, but Kleen says the number is probably higher because young birds are spotted regularly at Rend Lake, Crab Orchard Lake and Horseshoe Lake in southern Illinois, as well as other lakes throughout the state.

Who knows? Perhaps the cormorants fly over downtown Springfield to remind lawmakers that they're back — and why.

Beverley Scobell

High court bolsters protection for domestic violence victims Increasing legislative recognition of the seriousness of domestic violence imposes some extraordinary duties of protection on police, according to the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in Galloway v. Kinkelaar. In this case, a wife had secured an order of protection against her husband. He made threatening phone calls to her for more than two hours and finally abducted her at gunpoint. The Effingham County Sheriff's Department only took action at that point, even though she had noti-

8 * March 1996 Illinois Issues

TRAVELER'S ADVISORY Vacationing in Mexico? Be sure to pack the law books As if Illinois didn't have enough home-grown litigation. The state Supreme Court recently had to look into a lawsuit exported from Mexico. The case involved a vacation to Acapulco charges of negligence and unpopped kernels of popcorn. Three Illinois men rented an Acapulco condo for a weekend; each took a female guest along on the trip. One of the women claimed that she slipped on unpopped popcorn kernels spilled on the kitchen floor by one of the men. The resulting fall caused injuries serious enough that she eventually needed spinal surgery. She sued in Illinois courts because Mexican law does not recognize alleged negligence in such cases. Obviously, the courts had to determine before anything else whether Illinois was the proper place to sue. The first issue the high court addressed in Esser v. Mclntyre was the possible effect on U.S.-Mexican economic relations. It found that most people would not worry about Mexico's tort laws before choosing to visit, and therefore there would be no adverse economic effect if Illinois courts decided the case. Only then could it determine that Illinois' laws take an interest, absent in Mexico, in protecting citizens from such negligence, and that a trip planned in Illinois, by Illinoisans and involving Illinoisans is properly a matter for Illinois law. Of course, the court did not rule on liability for the spilled popcorn. The trial court had issued an incorrect jury instruction, so the whole case goes back for further trial action. F. Mark Siebert

Nice work, if you can get it Imagine receiving $1.8 million over 23 years without doing any work for it. It could happen to attorney W. Robert Blair, former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. Here's how. In 1984 Blair negotiated a lease of two Chicago city properties for XL Disposal Corp.; the company used them for waste disposal sites. It agreed to pay Blair or his estate $5,000 per month, with a 6 percent yearly increase, for as long as it operated the facilities. The lease was renewable for up to a total of 25 years. In 1985, XL sold the use of one of the properties to John Sexton Contractors Co. for $600,000. Sexton agreed, among other things, to pay Blair $2,650 monthly plus the yearly increase for as long as it operated the site. In 1989, after it had paid Blair $133,000, Sexton stopped the payments. XL sued and Blair entered the legal fray. Sexton raised a variety of arguments, including the claim that the fee to Blair was excessive. The Illinois Supreme Court concluded that Sexton must pay Blair as agreed. What looks like a good deal for Blair could have been terrible, however. If XL had stopped operating the facilities the day after making the agreement, it could have stopped paying Blair. Similarly, Sexton can stop paying any time it stops operating the facility, F. Mark Siebert

Illinois Issues March 1996 * 9

TWO THUMBS UP
Illinois, the CD-ROM

The 1993 movie Backdraft, starring actors William Baldwin, Kurt Russell and Scott Glenn, along with real-life Chicago fire fighters Cedric Young and Kevin Casey, marked a high point for the Illinois Film Office. That year, the film industry paid the state $115 million for on-location scenes. Last year, income from moviemaking in the state was only $22 million. Film office director Ron Ver Kuilen says one reason for the drop was a change in the monetary exchange rate that encouraged moviemakers to cross the border and shoot films in Canada. However, Ver Kuilen says Illinois has jumped out in front of other states by investing in new software that allows the state's film office, a division of the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, to put its resource guide on CD-ROM.

The movie Backdraft was profitable for Illinois. In 1993, the film industry paid the state $115 million for on-location scenes. Actors William Baldwin (left), Kurt Russell (center) and Scott Glenn (right) were joined by real-life Chicago fire fighters Cedric Young (second from left) and Kevin Casey (second from right), who had supporting roles in the film.

An alternative to the printed 250-page Illinois Production Guide, the CD-ROM contains "thousands" of pages easily accessible to movie production companies. "Before, we had to limit space," says Ver Kuilen, "but now actors can submit their entire resumes, including photographs, and companies selling to movie producers can put their entire catalogs on the CD-ROM." The film office is sending 2,500 copies of the disks containing 6,000 data entries to production executives nationwide.

Beverley Scobell

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH
Dinosaurs, nature, Navy Pier,
glaciers — all right here in virtual Illinois

It's a big state, but that is no reason to just sit at home.

Well, actually, it is. You can tour the Prairie State, with all its natural, artistic, scientific and even athletic wonder without leaving the convenience of your mouse pad. Just browse through Illinois on the World Wide Web.

Begin at http://www.state.il.us/ the address for the State of Illinois page and a good jumping-off point for many interesting web sites. This page, in addition to governmental information, contains links to libraries, museums and Illinois tourism. The tourism link will take you to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, Chicago tourism and the Illinois Fishing Page. Those itching for spring so they can head for their favorite fishing hole will find articles on, among other things, steelheads, crappie and "citified fishing holes," as well as links to southern Illinois fishing, the fishing pages of other states and the Women's Fishing Partnerships.

Chicago tourism (http://reagan.eecs.uic.edu/tourism.html) lets you visit art galleries, live theater, major sightseeing attractions, museums, food and dining suggestions, shopping locations and sports, including a golf guide and link to Chicago's professional teams. There is also a directory of hotels and lodging.

The Field Museum of Natural History has its own page (http://www.bvis.uic.edu/museum/) where you can sample exhibits such as dinosaurs and Javanese Masks, go to a laboratory and visit Fossil Lake. The Illinois State Museum in Springfield (http://MUSEUM.STATE.IL.US.) can transport you to the Midwest of another era —16,000 years ago — with information about glaciers, plants and animals of the Ice Age. The museum link on the State of Illinois page also can take you to the Krannert Museum at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

The state page also contains a listing of state agencies, including the Department of Natural Resources and its Illinois Natural Resources Information Network (http://dnr.state.il.us/), which is a guide to outdoor recreation throughout the state, including state parks, nature preserves, conservation areas, snowmobile sites and bicycle trails.

This is just a slim sampling of the marvels available in "virtual Illinois."

Donald Sevener

10 * March 1996 Illinois Issues

SURF'S UP
Internet proves profitable
for Chicago community groups

Surfing the Internet is fast becoming a popular pastime, but for Margarita Garcia it may become a lucrative one. She found money.

"Without access to the Internet, I would not have known that the Rockefeller Foundation has grants available for organizations like ours," says Garcia, manager of the Pilsen Coalition for Families. She is submitting a proposal for money to hire someone to coordinate the 18 agencies that now make up the group and to recruit new members to the coalition. Garcia says a coordinator would save on duplication of services among their member agencies and more effectively use the funding they get. She says a new staff person would also search out more funding resources from the Internet.

The Pilsen organization is one of 50 Near West Side community organizations in Chicago that are beginning to use the resources of the Internet. With the help of a federally funded program administered by the University of Illinois at Chicago, the gap between information-rich and information-poor communities is closing. Albert Schorsch III, senior economic development planner at UIC's Center for Urban Economic Development, says most of the community groups are connected and volunteers from each one take a training course on how to use the Internet. Four high schools are linked to the community network, and the Mexican Fine Arts Museum is preparing an online exhibit. Other groups operate bulletin boards that recycle computer equipment for those who want to go online. Garcia and Schorsch agree that lack of equipment, particularly the necessary modems, still holds some people back.

But those who have dipped a toe into that vast sea of information on the Internet already feel more empowered. And enriched.

Beverley Scobell

Politicians banking on the job market to absorb people who are "reformed" off welfare rolls apparently need to take a closer look at the want ads. A new university study confirms what many welfare advocates and recipients have been saying all along: There are more people needing jobs than there are entry-level jobs.

A study by Nikolas Theodore of the Chicago Urban League and Virginia L. Carison of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found there were 285,459 unemployed workers and welfare recipients, but only 68,645 entry-level job opportunities in Illinois in 1993 — roughly four job seekers for every job vacancy. Northern Illinois University sponsored the study, entitled "Are There Enough Jobs? Welfare Reform and Labor Market Reality."

The researchers also discovered a geographic imbalance between jobs and jobless. Although DuPage County has about equal numbers of people seeking jobs and jobs available, every other county in the state had at least two job-seekers for every entry-level position offered. In Chicago and southern Illinois, the ratio is six to one. In East St. Louis, the figures are staggering: nine job-seekers for every entry-level job. When the researchers counted only those jobs that could support a family above the poverty level ($11,522 per year), the statewide ratio of job-seekers to jobs was seven to one.

Under the bipartisan mantra adopted from President Bill Clinton's vow to "end welfare as we know it," the Illinois General Assembly last year enacted a welfare reform measure that included a provision limiting public aid benefits for certain recipients to two years.

Beverley Scobell

Illinois Issues March 1996 * 11