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County may sue over pile of stone

Friday, July 23, 2004
Chicago Sun-Times
by ABDON M. PALLASCH

The 100,000-ton mountain of crushed stone was supposed to be gone four years ago. But it still sits on Cook County Forest Preserve District property in River Grove.

Forest Preserve officials have ordered the DiPaolo Co. to get themselves and their stone out of Fullerton Woods by July 31.

But DiPaolo and Forest Preserve officials say it's unlikely the mountain will be moved by then.

That means the Forest Preserve District will likely have to file suit against DiPaolo, officials say.

Back in 1996, the county took bids from companies that wanted to buy limestone being excavated to create the county's Deep Tunnel project for flood control. DiPaolo won with the high bid of 83 cents per ton, or $1 million for the 1.2 million tons of limestone excavated from deep underground.

DiPaolo transformed the grassy field north of Triton College and Kiddieland into a fenced-in work site where the limestone was crushed into smaller rocks sold for road construction projects.

Forest Preserve officials learned that while DiPaolo trucks rumbled out of the work site loaded with crushed limestone, they rumbled back in with concrete, which the company crushed and mixed with the finer limestone powder to make a more marketable product for sale.

Engineers want bigger chunks in the mix, and the powdery by-product of crushing the limestone is hard to sell, said DiPaolo Vice President David DiPaolo.

DiPaolo has offered to spread the fine-ground remaining stone over unpaved jogging and horse paths or to spread it around the site and cover it with dirt or grass.

He is asking for one more year to finish clearing out and restoring the site.

The Forest Preserves has granted three extensions since 1999.

Forest Preserve Commissioner Mike Quigley said it looked to him like DiPaolo was using the woods as a rent-free staging area to work on various projects.

DiPaolo denies that.

"Last week, Mr. DiPaolo came in here, and I told him I was very, very upset by the fact these allegations are occurring, that this site is being used for other purposes," said Commissioner Pete Silvestri, mayor of nearby Elmwood Park.

DiPaolo has donated money to the political campaigns of Silvestri; Commissioner John Daley; state Rep. Skip Saviano; Mayor Daley; former Governors George Ryan and Jim Edgar, and other officials.

But Silvestri and Forest Preserve District officials said those donations have never dissuaded them from policing the site and will not stop them from coming down hard on DiPaolo for failing to meet the deadline.

 

 



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