The Boone Creek Watershed Alliance

MEDIA

Boone County Watershed, presented by Tom Skilling of WGN Channel 9 News: Ask Tom(Tom Skilling, Reporter Channel 9 Chicago): Chicago Wilderness

Did you know there are eco-systems in the Chicago-area that are more rare and endangered than the tropical rainforest?

A coalition of more than 140 environmental groups called "Chicago Wilderness," who are determined to preserve these rapidly shrinking pristine areas.

"This area is a true testimony to restoration," says Carol O'Donnell, Bull Valley land owner.

O'Donnell's family lives in McHenry County, some 55 miles northwest of the Loop. A few years ago, she moved to Bull Valley and began restoring the land.

The O'Donnell's property is beginning to look like it did when the when the settlers arrived some 200 years ago. And the O'Donnell's have taken the extra step of dedicated their private property as a nature preserve.

"We have the comfort of knowing that it can never be developed. It's the highest level of protection available to landowners in Illinois," says Carol.

The O'Donnell's land consists of oak savannas, wooded hillsides where tree limbs can spread out as wide as the trees are tall. And something called fen and sedge meadows, swampy ground or wetlands defined by lumps of dirt from which sprout grasses and wildflowers.

"There are only about 133 acres of this kind of wetland left in the state. These are our natural heritage, bits of nature that make this area so unique. These communities, these fens and oak woodlands and prairies are our signature. Plant communities as unique as the chaparral is to southern California or as the mangroves are to south Florida," says John Roger, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

With the help of Chicago Wilderness experts, the O'Donnell's have used controlled burns to clear their land of invasive plants that were choking native trees and plants.

"And it has responded in a way that is almost indescribable. There are things coming up now that may not have bloomed and grown for over 100 years," Roger says.

Here, you get some idea of what the O'Donnell's were up against. At first it looks like a chain saw massacre, but these McHenry County conservation employees and volunteers call it "tough love."

"What we're doing is rural renewal instead of urban renewal. I guess this land used to be open and just ripe with wildflowers and you can see what we're taking out is just junk," says Carol Ellinghausen, a volunteer.

And their hard work is paying off. But if you haven't been to McHenry County lately, you may be amazed at all the new apartment buildings and businesses.

"Now the current threat is suburban sprawl. Because this area is fed by groundwater that seeps in from the adjoining hills. What you do on the adjoining high ground affects what happens to the fen itself," says Roger.

This high ground separates that suburban sprawl from the O'Donnell's newly restored wetlands. And contains the mineral rich groundwater that allows those wetlands to flourish.

"These really are living museums and I have a personal role in this. I have two small children and once areas like this are gone, they'll never be able to experience it again," says Brad Semel, a natural research biologist.


*Former Lt. Governor Corrine Wood learns about fens and sedge meadows.*	*Gerould Wilhelm, botanist and author of the well-known "Plants of the Chicago Region" fascinates an eager enthusiastic audience.*

Boone Creek Watershed Alliance - http://www.booncreekwatershed.org