Indian Creek Restoration Moves Ahead

Volunteers in Long Grove, Illinois, have begun to restore a historic and environmentally valuable stretch of the Indian Creek stream corridor within the community's Reed-Turner Woodland. A Conservation 2000 (C2000) grant awarded this year to the Long Grove Park District by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is funding this four-acre sedge meadow restoration.

"C2000 funding is incredibly important. It means that a lot of great projects get done that otherwise would not," says Sean Wiedel, watershed planner for the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission (SMC). The commission often provides technical assistance for watershed projects, including the one at the Reed-Turner Woodland.

A gently sloping valley through Reed-Turner cradles a twisty, narrow channel of the Indian Creek, which drains communities including Long Grove, Vernon Hills, Hawthorn Woods, Lincolnshire, and Buffalo Grove. The adjacent sedge meadow plays a vital storage role during storm events and rainy seasons. Its native plant community not only absorbs the water, but cleans it and helps prevent streambank erosion.

Not long ago, deep shade cloaked the valley, the result of a canopy of ash, maple, and box elder that grew up on this historically open land over the past 40 years. Where Turk's cap lilies, cardinal flowers, and sedges once thrived, the barren streambank was eroding. With an estimated 72 percent of the watershed's wetlands gone, the region placed heavy demands on this little meadow.

Enter the Indian Creek Watershed Project Ltd., a citizen-based stakeholder group which set out in 1999 to create a watershed-wide plan to preserve, protect, and improve the waterway. The group worked with Lake County's SMC to win a grant from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for educational tools such as its new Web site and for the restoration of part of the sedge meadow at Reed-Turner.

With contagious enthusiasm, Tori Trauscht, project administrator for the Long Grove Park District, raised an army of volunteers and persuaded many experts to share their knowledge. These included Barbara Turner, whose family has been associated with the land since the 1920s. An avid naturalist who studied with May Watts at the Morton Arboretum, Turner and her husband Harold transferred the 33-acre property to The Nature Conservancy in 1974, in honor of Barbara's parents, Guy and Florence Reed. It has since become an Illinois Nature Preserve under the ownership of the Long Grove Park District.

In the project area, sedge species, long rendered dormant by shade, have re-emerged as the tree canopy has thinned. The lobelia and lilies are also returning. Clearing has just begun in the new project area, with plans for stabilizing the streambank and planting additional native plants. In the meantime, Trauscht says she is anxious to see what species will return on their own.

Since 1996, C2000 has provided $28 million in state funds to Illinois restoration projects, with $6.1 million (matched by $15.4 million in partnership funds) going to some 155 projects in the Chicago Wilderness region. To volunteer at Reed-Turner Woodland, contact Barbara Turner at (847) 438-4743.

— Rebecca Grill