IWLA-PCC NEWSLETTER
PCC Founded 1958 * FEBRUARY 2020 *60 years of conservation
“From the Dunes in the north, to the Kankakee River in the south”
Izaak Walton League of America - Porter County Chapter
Meetings held every 3rd Saturday, 1-3pm in the
Thomas Library in 2nd floor meeting room
200 W. Indiana Avenue, Chesterton, IN 46304
Next meeting February 15, 2020 from 1-3pm
Email: executivedirectoriwlapcc@gmail.com
Website: NWIconservation.org
Location: 200 West Indiana Avenue, Chesterton, IN, United States
Phone: 219-241-7431
Facebook: facebook.com/PCCIWLA
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
President - Gary Brown grbrown57@hotmail.com, 219-464-8882
Vice President - Jim Sweeney jp55biod@att.net, 219-322- 7239
Treasurer/Membership - Liz McCloskey tmconservation@csinet.net, 219-326-0700
Secretary - Susan Swarner susan.swarner@gmail.com, 219-201-5498
Chapter Directors: Don Frame df.nature@outlook.com, 219-331-6136 and
Bill Iltzsche biltzsche@hotmail.com 219-464-9850
Service for Herb Read
Visitation at noon and service at 1pm on Saturday, February 1.
St. John's United Church
225 W. Lincoln, Chesterton, IN
Herbert Philo Read, 93, who spent the greater part of his life working to preserve the Indiana Dunes, passed away peacefully at his home on December 22, 2019. He was born in Chicago, Illinois on June 22, 1926, the only child of Philo and Irene Read. As a boy Herbert visited the Indiana Dunes with his family nearly every weekend. He knew and photographed the Indiana Dunes in their undisturbed grandeur, before many of those Dunes were lost to intensive industrial and commercial development. It became his life’s work to preserve for future generations what remained of that precious natural treasure.
See full obituary; click here.
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IMPORTANT PCC UPCOMING EVENTS
2/9 Soup Social by Trackers 4-H Club
4:30-6:30 at Discovery School gym
(raising $ for PCC Bat program)
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2/15 February PCC Monthly Meeting
1-3p Thomas Library 2nd floor meeting room
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3/7 IN Div Meeting hosted by PCC*
Portage Riverwalk Pavillion
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3/10 Family Nature Night
6-7:30p Brummitt School
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3/21 March PCC Monthly Meeting
1-3p Thomas Library 2nd floor meeting room
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4/2 Family Nature Night
6-7:30p Northview School
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4/11 April PCC Monthly Meeting*
1-3p Thomas Library 2nd floor meeting room
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4/15 Family Nature Night
6-7:30p Liberty Elementary School
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4/18 Earth Day Celebration
9a-2p Valpo Expo Center
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4/25 Water Quality Symposium
by Valpo Chain of Lakes
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5/12 Family Nature Night
6-7:30p Discovery Charter School
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6/13 Gnomes Day Out...fairy festival
4-7p Frame Conservation Area
(6/27 rain date)
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To volunteer to help with anything that suits you; contact Annette Hansen executivedirectoriwlapcc@gmail.com 219-241-7431
*NOTE change from usual 3rd Saturday due to our involvement with Earth Day on 4/18.
join pcc at Garden Show by Porter County Master Gardners
You're invited to the 16th Annual Gardening Show! PCC will be there teaching visitors about bats and how they are beneficial for yards and gardens.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
8 a.m. to 4 p.m. CST (Chicago time)
Admission at the door; $10 Cash or Check, Children under 12 Free
Free Door Prizes, Free Parking
16th Annual Gardening Show Highlights:
- This year's theme is "2020 Vision for Your Garden." To focus in on 20/20 vision, we're partnering with Valparaiso Lions Club whose Recycle for Sight program helps improve the vision of people in need. To see how you can be part of the Spectacular Spectacles Challenge, click here.
- A Seed & Bulb Exchange - quite possibly the largest on-site event of its type in the country. Your $10 paid admission (cash or check) includes free Seed & Bulb Exchange tickets. We're working hard to open the Show with an inventory of 10,000 packets of seed and an assortment of canna and daffodil bulbs. So many choices!
- Presentations by national, regional and local gardening speakers.
- Demonstrations - hands on "how to" topics on basic gardening skills.
- The Happening Place in Building 3 where there are lots of things TO DO!
- More than 125 exhibitor and vendor booths with products and services for and about gardens and gardening.
- Garden photography contest. Check here for all the latest news on entry categories and deadlines.
- Gently used gardening books and magazines. Bargains begin at $0.25 each.
- Children's Corner educational activities
- Catered dining service
- The chance to win one of five $100 cash door prizes
- Discounted hotel rate for overnight guests
Spring Family Nature Nights
All Family Nature Nights will set-up at 5-5:30 and the events run 6-7:30pm. Partners will table with PCC;
*3/10 at Brummitt School
*4/2 at Northview School
*4/15 at Liberty Elementary School
*5/12 at Discovery Charter School
PCC volunteers: Please share what you know about conservation with these young people; let Annette Hansen know what area you can help in. executivedirectoriwlapcc@gmail.com or
219-241-7431
March 7 -- IWLA Indiana Division meeting
For the March meeting of the Indiana Division IWLA, the Porter County Chapter will be hosting the meeting at the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk Pavilion. The south end of Lake Michigan has been taking a beating this winter and if the Pavilion becomes unusable, we will host the meeting at the Miller Chapter.
https://goo.gl/maps/c5bLiapT4ep8pDCC9
This video is from November, the wetland to the right is now connected to the lake—this is where we will have the March meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjcgGNAIgwg
grateful for donations
'Angry lake' makes pavilion bad idea
Dunes Action calls state park plan 'disaster waiting to happen'
January 16, 2020 - Michigan City News Dispatch
CHESTERTON — A local lakeshore advocacy group opposed to construction of a new banquet center at the Indiana Dunes State Park says heavy erosion caused by a recent storm shows why it should not be built.
“The recent wind and waves of an angry Lake Michigan have made it obvious that pavilion construction is a financial disaster waiting to happen,” according to Dunes Action co-founder Jim Sweeney. He’s asking the public to send photographs of the storm and its impacts to Governor Eric Holcomb “to show him why a new building should not be built less than 200 feet from the edge of Lake Michigan.
“The wind and the waves were splashing water onto and into the Pavilion on Saturday,” Sweeney said. “It would be grossly irresponsible to build a new building there.”
The new building will be owned by the State of Indiana, he said, and “That’s us. Any damage to that building will be borne by the taxpayers.”
Sweeney referred to video and still photos of the damage being done to the shoreline since November.
“Any elected officials that support this project after seeing what these storms can do should be held accountable,” he said. “The lake will win that fight.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expecting Lake Michigan, already near all-time record high levels, to rise by another foot in the next couple of years, Sweeney said.
“That means all the homes and businesses close to the lake are going to get beat up even more in coming years than they have been.”
He urged lakeshore residents to contact Holcomb at Indiana State House, Indianapolis, IN 46204.