Turning Back Time

Libertyville Township’s award-winning stormwater program efforts return selected high-value properties to presettlement conditions
Turning Back Time

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The Des Plaines River originates in Libertyville, Ill., and eventually reaches the mighty Mississippi. Flooding is common along the corridor, and some responsibility for protecting those properties falls to Libertyville Township supervisor Kathleen O’Connor.

O’Connor inherited an amazing legacy. In 1985, Mike Graham, then supervisor, saw how development would lead to problems with groundwater recharge and stormwater. That year, voters approved a $22.6 million bond referendum to limit development on more than 1,500 acres by buying parcels or protecting them with conservation easements.

The 14 separate parcels, almost encircling the township, became the Open Space District, the first in the state. Two sites, Oak Openings and Liberty Prairie, are so ecologically significant that they are classified as Illinois Nature Preserves, the state’s highest protection status.

Working on an extremely thin budget and in cooperation with other government entities and conservation groups, the township has seen impressive results that please property owners. For its efforts, the township received the 2010 Community of the Year Stormwater Award from the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission.

 

Coordinated efforts

The township surrounds the villages of Libertyville and Green Oaks and portions of Mettawa, Mundelein, Lake Bluff, Lake Forest, North Chicago, Waukegan, and Vernon Hills, but it is responsible only for unincorporated areas.

“Creating a stormwater management plan was challenging because much of the work is done by the Libertyville Township Road District,” says O’Connor. “Our stormwater flows downstream in ditches. We’re responsible for maintaining the drainage system in the unincorporated areas. Our stormwater program is a collaborative effort between the township and the road district.”

Because the road district maintains the six detention basins and 60 miles of drainage ditches with culverts, including subdivisions with underground storage systems, O’Connor partnered with highway commissioner Bill Morgan to make better use of resources and figure out ways to comply with unfunded stormwater mandates.

Morgan has one full-time and one seasonal employee, O’Connor’s office has seven employees, and the Libertyville Township Open Space District has two seasonal employees.

The township contracts with Gewalt Hamilton Associates, an engineering firm in Vernon Hills, to maintain its MS4 website, track control measures, submit the annual report to the U.S. EPA, inspect the 17 outfalls, update the outfall inventory maps, test upstream and downstream water quality, inspect detention basins and recommend maintenance. The township budgets $6,000 annually for the service.

 

Master plan

The township’s goal is to restore and maintain the Open Space District to presettlement conditions. Communities initially stabilized stream banks or took fields out of production without addressing flow problems, and so flooding swept away their accomplishments every year.

The Lake County Stormwater Management Commission helped people to realize that restoration had to start at the headwaters. One example is the Atkinson Road flood basin project along the Upper North Branch Chicago River Watershed. During heavy rains, runoff from development flowed over an 80-acre field overgrown with invasive buckthorn, washed across the road, and flooded backyards on the other side.

The village of Green Oaks used township property to create a flood basin in the southeast corner of the field. “We helped Green Oaks explain to residents why it was important to remove buckthorn,” says Chris Slago, Open Space manager. “Homeowners saw woods, not an invasive species, and they were concerned that cutting it down would ruin wildlife habitat.”

The 20- to 25-foot-tall trees with up to 10-inch trunks created an impenetrable layer. The dense shade and a toxin released by the buckthorn killed forest floor plants and contributed to erosion. In town meetings, Slago and Green Oaks staff convinced residents that healthy properties have diverse flora that encourages wildlife.

Since the buckthorn was removed, many homeowners have said how pleased they are with the results. Heavy rains now leave a foot of water in the drainage ditch behind their properties, and Atkinson Road is dry.

“It probably was one of the most dramatic flood-control projects on our property,” says Slago. “Anything we do to improve runoff in the Des Plaines River Watershed decreases the volume reaching the river. In a way, we’re helping people all the way to the Mississippi River with flood control.”

 

Sound management

Another success story is the staff’s participation in the creation of the Bull Creek-Bull’s Brook Council. That council developed the Bull Creek-Bull’s Brook Watershed-Based Plan, which identifies one goal as protecting and improving the watershed’s natural resources.

The watershed drains 8,970 acres from west to east before discharging into the Des Plaines River. The management plan identifies how to prevent flood damage, improve water quality, and enhance natural resources and recreational opportunities through wetland mitigation banks, riparian buffers and grass waterways.

Unique to the watershed is the 5,800-acre Liberty Prairie Reserve, in which 3,200 acres are permanently protected from further development. The 8.5-acre Sedge Meadow Wetland restoration gave another example of how properly managed open spaces should look and the environmental and recreational benefits they provide.

Liberty Prairie Conservancy helped the staff obtain grants and linked Slago with botanists and ecologists. They learned from soil cores that up to three feet of sediment had washed down from a field, covering what used to be a sedge meadow.

“We excavated the soil and put it back on the hill,” says Slago. “Besides seeding the area, many volunteers planted grass plugs. It was really neat when long-dormant seeds germinated.”

The township’s efforts are aided by private and corporate contributions and by donations of restoration supplies from HSBC Bank, Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), Motorola, and Mariani, a Lake Bluff landscaping company. The Sedge Meadow project also involved wetland enhancement, stabilizing 1,000 feet of Bull Creek, increasing and naturalizing an adjacent buffer area, and studying the possible removal of the Casey Road Dam, which creates an artificial lake near the restoration site.

 

Friendly fire

Besides the dam, a farm north of Casey Road has a situation common in many Midwest fields — drain tiles that funnel water to creeks. As the tile lines fail from age, surface flow deposits silt in wetland areas. The sediment chokes native plants and encourages invasive species such as phragmites (reeds), cattails and purple loosestrife.

The township received a Watershed Management Board 50/50 matching grant to design a plan that addressed surface flow problems. “After high water flows from fields, invasive species are our second biggest challenge,” says Slago. “Phragmite roots grow deep and strong. They are so difficult to control that the most effective eradication method is to combine herbicides with prescribed burns over two to three seasons. One burn is not enough.”

Although replacing the drain tiles would be easier, that would push the water downstream faster and exacerbate stream bank erosion. The management plan calls for the staff to disable the remaining functional tiles, eradicate the phragmites, and plant native species to prevent erosion and recharge the groundwater.

Prescribed burning in open spaces is a management tool. The staff burns newly converted prairies once per year and established prairies on a three-year rotation. Too wet, too dry, or too windy conditions affect the rotation. Such weather prevented the rotational burn of one 22.5-acre wetland mitigation bank for four years. “We finally did the prescribed burn late last April,” says O’Connor. “Residents were excited because they were seeing land management occurring in their backyards.”

 

Healthy balance

One way the township balances the feel of an agricultural community with preservation is by leasing its land to alfalfa and row crop farmers. “We also lease two properties to riding stables,” says O’Connor. “The leases generate some revenue that we stretch through our partnership with the Liberty Prairie Conservancy, which explores grant opportunities on our behalf.” The money supports the township’s restoration and maintenance efforts.

Another source of income for restoration maintenance is the unused funds from the Open Space Referendum. Special state legislation allowed the township to keep the money rather than return it to the taxpayers. “It worked out well, because otherwise the town fund would have to absorb the cost of these projects,” O’Connor says.

The township still has some stormwater surface flow problems on fallow fields. The Watershed Management Board grant will enable seeding of those acres with ground cover until they can be included in a restoration project. It also will fund a conceptual plan to address severe erosion problems in the Bull Creek North headwaters.

Another grant from the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission will enable Gewalt Hamilton to do a flood-control study along a road, where runoff has plagued homeowners for years.

A major issue for O’Connor is balancing the number of new projects with managing the ones already in place. “Our present goal is to restore the land to a certain level, then look at what should come next,” she says. “Partnering with the Lake County Forest Preserve District, the conservancy and the county has enabled our small staff to do an unbelievable job of identifying future projects.

“We’ve made a ton of headway restoring much of what we own. It’s exciting because the program gives people a glimpse of what the land may have looked like before Europeans arrived and what it could continue to look like through proper management.”



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