The Illinois Department of Natural Resources is once again in the middle of a controversy regarding the discovery of more material containing asbestos at Illinois Beach State Park.

Once considered a flagship park because it was the most visited in the state, budget cuts and nagging questions about asbestos-containing material washing up on the beaches and poking through the soil like emerging spring plants in the nature preserve area have tarnished its reputation.

This week, the Illinois Dunesland Preservation Society filed a complaint with Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office after accusing the IDNR of making false statements to the press and alleging that IDNR consultants have been removing friable asbestos material without following state regulations.

The society, which was formed more than 50 years ago to have the dunes area on Lake Michigan dedicated as a state park, also filed a complaint with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's air pollution control unit, land pollution control, water pollution control and the Lake County Health Department and their governing board.

"We knew about the asbestos before the complaint was filed and it's been cleaned up," said Chris McCloud, communications director for the IDNR. "My understanding is the asbestos was found and its been picked up and is ready to be shipped out."

The material was discovered this spring after a controlled burn in the northern part of the park. "None of it is friable," McCloud said.

A few years ago, asbestos-containing material was found at the south end of the park. For a number of years a consultant has picked up non-friable asbestos-containing cement pipe along the Lake Michigan beach.

Whether or not the new material on the north end of the park is friable is a key distinction of how hazardous the material is to people handling it. Friable means that you can crumble the material in your hand thereby releasing the fibers into the air. Once asbestos gets into the lungs it can become deadly.

It is considered a serious indoor air pollutant with links to such serious respiratory diseases as asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

James Tuinenga, a spokesman for TEM Inc., a Glen Ellyn-based testing firm that analyzed pieces of Transite pipe, manufactured by the old Johns-Manville Co. of Waukegan, for The News Sun in 1998, explained the health risk for non-friable material is minimal, although not entirely known. He said if it is non-friable then it is in a regulatory "never never land."

Paul Kakuris, president of the Dunesland Preservation Society and the group's consultant, Jeffery Camplin of Rosemont-based CESI Environmental Services, said a lot of the new material is friable and they have pictures of it wrapped in plastic and a worker on Tuesday carting it away on an ATV. They also found a lot of other material that had not been picked up yet.

"They've lied to the press again," said Kakuris, referring to a 2004 incident where an IDNR spokesman said material found on the beach did not contain asbestos, when in fact it did turn out to be asbestos-containing Transite pipe along with other non-asbestos material.

"It's the same game. You would think they would learn," he said. "There is substantially more roofing material and siding. There is no question it has asbestos."

Camplin, whose company is a safety and environmental consulting firm that does a lot of asbestos consulting, said the IDNR is wrong. Workers are still piling it up and bagging it, but they are not labeling the packages and they are not cordoning off the areas like they should.

McCloud said state workers have been cordoning off the areas they are working in, but he was unsure how they were doing it. He said the areas where it has been found are off the clearly marked trails so no one should be in that area anyway.

Kakuris said he has learned that a special enclosed dumpster that has a cover on it is supposed to be delivered to the park today.

Camplin said workers are wrapping it in plastic because it is friable. "They are treating it very cavalierly," he said, adding that it should be labeled as a hazardous material.

"There's a lot of stuff out there. When you rub with your hands, you can see the fibers come off," he said.

Camplin became involved at the invitation of Kakuris to check out an area near the Greenwood Avenue fishing pier in Waukegan that had just gone through a $2 million clean-up of asbestos containing material by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2002. That material was found after Waukegan Park District consultants found the material while checking the site as part of a study for a proposed soccer complex next to the Johns-Manville Superfund hazardous waste site.

Camplin said he didn't believe Kakuris, but then the two went out and found more asbestos material along the path used by fishermen and inside a portable bathroom used by anglers and visitors to the site.

In 2003, the popular fishing pier was closed and a spokesman for Midwest Generation, which owns the adjacent coal-fired power plant and pier, said it was not the result of more asbestos-containing material being found, but that the lease with the IDNR and Waukegan had expired.

At that time, spokesman Doug McFarlan said the firm would sit down with the city and the IDNR to work out a new lease, but it could not be done in a day or two. The power plant expels warm water at the pier and that area was popular for fishing year round.

Three years later, that pier is still closed.

Asbestos was first found during a conference of environmental professionals at the lodge at the park. An official with the EPA found Transite pipe on the beach in 1990, but it was never revealed until 1998 when a lot more pieces washed up on shore.

Even after the publicity about asbestos, the number of visitors to the state park increased. Officials said in August 1998 that there were 48,000 visits ahead of the year before, which saw 2.5 million people, visit the park.

According to the IDNR there were 1.4 million visitors in 2003 and more than 1.5 million in 2004. The number of repeat visitors in a year is unknown.

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