DuPage's Willoway Brook Tributary Restored

June 10 marked the completion of the Morton Arboretum's Willoway Brook stabilization and restoration project. Willoway Brook is a DuPage River East Branch tributary that enters the river on the Arboretum's grounds in Lisle. The brook formerly carried sediment from its shoreline erosion to the Arboretum's Lake Marmo and Sterling Pond, and the East Branch of the DuPage River, negatively affecting these waterways. The Arboretum reshaped and reinforced portions of the streambank to minimize erosion, and replanted it with native plants appropriate to the surrounding prairie, savanna, and woodlands.

Launched during the summer of 2001, the project cost an estimated $415,000 that the Arboretum shared with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and DuPage County, working with the Conservation Foundation to create a model for erosion control.