Last Friday we wrote about how misinformation creates more disagreements than legitimate differences of opinion.  Today we deal with two more examples of that problem.

Last week’s (August 12) edition of the Park Ridge Journal contained two O’Hare Airport pieces with their own fair share of misinformation.  The first was a story about resident Gene Spanos’ “survey” of approximately 100 residents who had previously expressed opposition to O’Hare expansion (“Spanos Hopes Mayor Will Use O’Hare Survey Results”) – not exactly a “random” sampling.  The second was a letter to the editor from resident Tim Perry (“Residents Must Voice Opinions”).

Spanos wants Park Ridge Mayor Dave Schmidt to use those survey results when he meets with U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (6th Dist.), presumably in support of reductions in flights, stopping construction of the runway whose path will extend over Granville, noise abatement, and other concessions Spanos wants in connection with the new runway 9L/27R.

While we don’t doubt that Spanos is well meaning, a 100-response survey – from people who have already expressed opposition to O’Hare expansion – isn’t even remotely close to being “statistically significant” (i.e., its results actually have meaning instead of being products of mere chance).  For a survey of Park Ridge residents to have statistical significance, Spanos would have needed approximately 800 responses from a random (rather than a pre-selected) pool.  

So Spanos’ survey results are statistically worthless for use by anybody for any legitimate purpose. In other words, they are just misinformation that actually detracts from legitimate O’Hare arguments and interferes with sound decision-making.

Perry’s letter in the Journal, which also ran as a guest essay in last week’s Herald-Advocate (“Resident begins his final reproach”), blames O’Hare expansion not just for more noise and pollution – as does Spanos’ letter – but also for the increased flooding Park Ridge has been experiencing: “There is information that links the O’Hare expansion to the flooding we now have on a regular basis.”

We trust Perry is also well-meaning, but when we looked for that “information” about the new runway causing our flooding we couldn’t find it anywhere.  And given the half-cocked way that too many residents seem to be going off about the new runway, flooding, and anything else that annoys them, we suspect that Perry’s “information” may have been somebody else’s fabrication. 

We also looked for proof of Perry’s contention that “when O’Hare built the new runway they had to reroute a stream and eliminate 150 acres of wetlands…[that] are no longer there to accept the water” that, presumably, flows into Park Ridge.  We couldn’t find anything about stream relocation, either, but we did find several references to the wetlands elimination – along with reports that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required the creation of 1.5 acres or more of new wetlands for every acre of wetlands that was destroyed during construction of the new runway. 

So unless Richie Daley and his minions were able to pull a “Chicago Way” con on the Army Corps of Engineers and get them to overlook the replacement of those eliminated wetlands, there appears to be no factual support for Perry’s contentions that the flooding in Park Ridge is attributable to the new runway.   

Noise and pollution from O’Hare air traffic is a serious issue for our community, as is flooding.  To deal effectively and successfully with those problems, we will need to enlist the cooperation of other governments and governmental officials – the federal government, the State of Illinois, and our neighboring municipalities.  To do that, we will need to project reason and credibility in the positions we take with them.

Misinformation, in the form of unfounded accusations and meaningless surveys, is exactly what we don’t need.