[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 143 (Monday, October 21, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1938]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 COMMENDING THE SAVE THE DUNES COUNCIL

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                        HON. PETER J. VISCLOSKY

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 21, 1996

  Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to commend the Save the 
Dunes Council, and its executive director, Tom Anderson, as they 
celebrate their 44th anniversary. The Save the Dunes Council is 
primarily responsible for the creation of the Indiana Dunes National 
Lakeshore, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
  The Save the Dunes Council was formed to establish a dunes national 
park. Its main goal was to fight off plans of powerful political and 
economic interests to industrialize the entire Hoosier shoreline on 
Lake Michigan. In 1952, Dorothy Buell, a citizen of Ogden Dunes, 
invited two dozen area women to a meeting in her house on the first day 
of the summer. This fledgling group was called the Save the Dunes 
Council. Their main focus was to raise money to buy the 5 miles of 
beach and dunes generally located between the towns of Dune Acres on 
the east and Ogden Dunes on the west. These women did succeed in 
purchasing a piece of the unprotected land at a 1953 Port County tax 
sale, which now stands as Cowles Bog.
  From these early beginnings, the council, which included Herb and 
Charlotte Read, and Illinois Senator Paul Douglas, traveled to 
Washington, DC, to fight plans to industrialize the area. As a result, 
on November 5, 1966, the first Indiana Dunes bill was enacted to create 
the 5,800-acre Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Since 1983, Dale B. 
Enquist has been superintendent of the Indiana Dunes National 
Lakeshore. This year, Mr. Enquist received the Department of the 
Interior's highest honor, the Meritorious Service Award.
  The Council fought corporate interests and the entire Indiana 
legislative and congressional delegations in the days before the 
National Environmental Policy Act and open meetings law. While two 
steel plants and a deep water port on Lake Michigan now sit in the 
heart of the dunes, 14,000 acres of Indiana's dunes are forever 
protected as a State and national parkland.
  The Save the Dunes Council developed tactics and strategies that were 
never used before. It stood up to corporate America and won the battle. 
The Save the Dunes Council has preserved one of the country's most 
beautiful and precious assets to ever exist. Mr. Speaker, I ask you and 
my other distinguished colleagues to join me in commending the Save the 
Dunes Council, as well as the hope it embodies in its continuing effort 
to preserve our environment.

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