Migratory birds face threat from South Works quantum computing campus

In early April, when the ground has begun to thaw and the first shoots of ironweed and wild bergamot are coming up in Chicago’s nature areas, head to the South Side and east on 87th Street until you hit the lake.

You’ll be standing in Steelworkers Park, and if you stand there long enough, listening closely, you’ll likely hear the otherworldly flutelike whistle of an eastern meadowlark.

Keep listening and you’ll hear a symphony of migratory songbirds. They make summer homes or stopovers in the open grasslands that Steelworkers Park and its neighbor, Park No. 566, supply in relative abundance, but which have become exceedingly rare in the Chicago area.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird database, over 250 species have been sighted there. Some, like the meadowlark and the grasshopper sparrow, were once commonly sighted. Their Great Lakes populations are now in rapid decline. Some, like the bobolink, stop or nest in Chicago only after migrating from as far south as Argentina.

They all became more imperiled last month. On July 25, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. J.B. Pritzker hosted representatives of Silicon Valley startup PsiQuantum for a press conference announcing plans to build a $9 billion quantum computing campus at the site of the former South Works steel mill, part of which now comprises Steelworkers Park.

Proposed plans for the campus remain vague. It is estimated to create up to 150 jobs in the first five years. This is highly specialized technology. But the project appears destined to destroy much of the grassland habitat that keeps birds returning to the site each spring.

Area residents want that same open green space maintained. Attendees at a public discussion said they hoped the city would maintain public access to lakefront parks. In response, Deputy Mayor Kenya Merritt would only say, "We do anticipate public spaces will continue to remain public."

This is not enough. City and state officials should commit to maintaining the parks and grassland at the site. Better yet, they should commit to expanding them to neighboring communities. Otherwise, those avian residents of the area are likely never to be heard from again.

Jason de Stefano, Hyde Park

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