IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SIGNED OUR PETITION, PLEASE DO SO!!!! 

For those of you who have signed, here's an update:  Yesterday some of the members of the Graue Mill Board had a first look at plans for this reach of Salt Creek and the Graue Mill Dam.  They seem to have 'been around', we just weren't even told about them!

In a nutshell?  We were shown some other DuPage County streams/rivers where they've done this same thing.  It is appalling!  One of them looks VERY much like a CANAL!  ALL of the examples they're able to give us are in remote, rather unpopulated areas.  NONE of them are in an historic area like the Mill, and none of them have the kind of daily visitors we enjoy on the Mill grounds.

The basic proposal will make Salt Creek considerably narrower, and will move the bed farther away from The Mill.  The picturesque opportunity you have all enjoyed for wedding pictures, family photos and all will be gone.  There is almost no visual connection between Salt Creek and the Mill.  We are told you'll still be able to hear the water going over rocks.

So how do they propose to put any water over the mill wheel?  They propose digging a narrow, fairly deep channel that will dog-leg through the property from somewhere upstream and will move under the wheel.

The purpose for all of this?  "Cleaner" water.  The measure? Several insects that are not currently found upstream of the dam, and several kinds of fish that aren't upstream either.  There is NO discussion of the amount of pollution that routinely washes into Salt Creek as a result of the development all along Ginger Creek (which "cleans" ALL of the Yorktown area parking lots as it moves into Oak Brook and eventually to Salt Creek) and the more direct stormwater that flushes directly into the stream as it courses through the commercial portion of Oak Brook.

So? Largely unidentified people (organizations) are paying for all of this, admitted to be in the millions of dollars.  We do know that the Conservation Foundation and the DuPage River Salt Creek Work Group include not only ALL of the local governments but also many of the engineering and construction companies who get the contracts to do this work.  Imagine that!

We're told there will be "some public comment" arranged, but it may be virtual.  We don't know.  We're still trying to find out why those of us who have the contract to operate the Mill and the miller's home were some of the last to find out about this effort....we don't think that any of the home owners along the banks of Salt Creek have been made aware, either.