News

Kane FPD Makes
“Most Important Purchase Ever”

The Forest Preserve District of Kane County is celebrating a 741-acre land purchase it has pursued for two decades. The new acquisition, to be called the Brunner Family Forest Preserve after the previous landowner, fills in an enormous stretch of previously unprotected land along the Fox River, from the Buffalo Park Preserve in Algonquin, south to Fox River Shores Forest Preserve near Carpentersville. The new assemblage of three preserves now provides more than 1,000 acres and 3.5 miles of uninterrupted open space along the river.

The purchase was made possible by a $1.46 million grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.

Farmed for decades, the Brunner property still has a mix of wetlands, fens, and woodlands. Bald eagles visit its shoreline and rare mussels inhabit the water. The acquisition will also help protect the fen at Fox River Shores, the largest riverside fen in the county.

“The Brunner acquisition,” says Drew Ullberg, director of natural resources, “is by far the most important single land purchase the district has ever made in its history. It’s preserving the last largest possible stretch of the Fox River open to the district. There are so many little pockets of not only interesting but rare plant communities along that three mile stretch that are now preserved.”

— Elizabeth Riotto