Lake & Kane County FPDs Protect Watersheds

The forest preserve districts of both Lake and Kane County took further steps in September to protect their watersheds.

The Lake County Forest Preserves purchased 60 acres of woodlands and wetlands surrounding Sequoit Creek as it winds its way between Sun Lake and East Loon Lake near Lake Villa, Illinois. Added to Sun Lake Forest Preserve, which now covers 581 acres, the land is part of the important East Loon Lake Advanced Identification Wetland Complex and is also an Illinois Natural Areas Inventory site.

Prompted by a 1995 study indicating the need to protect the 40-square-mile Tyler Creek Watershed, the Forest Preserve District of Kane County (FPDKC) is protecting its rough-and-tumble glacial past with two large purchases totaling 903 acres.

In Rutland Township, the 358-acre Oury land acquisition borders a prior 170-acre purchase and features a mix of oak savanna, gravel hills, and wetland. A small subdivision separates it from the 450-acre Freeman Kame-Ed Meagher Preserve. These preserves piece together a spacious kettle, kame, and outwash complex along the Marengo Moraine, which sweeps through the western part of the county.

In neighboring Plato township, the 564-acre Muirhead acquisition preserves the heart of ancient Lake Pingree. Torrents of water pouring off a melting glacier created the lake when the water became trapped between two moraines, but only the degraded Pingree Creek flows through the new preserve now. The district plans to restore both the creek and a tallgrass prairie that is home to gray partridges.

— Elizabeth Riotto