Plank Road Prairie: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Fire

About fire and a linear prairie ... largely undiscovered (and needing more friends) to this day. 

Every year the Somme Team drives south to help the Orland Grassland Volunteers on what seems like a sacred mission. We burn eleven orphan prairies. They are Illinois Nature Preserves that had been largely abandoned. If conditions are perfect, we can finish controlled burns for them all in one, long, exhausting, exhilarating day. 

This year, we burned only nine. 

Admittedly, these prairies are small, or at least narrow. They got smaller by stages. Their destiny as remnants of The Illinois Prairie began in 1850 as a plank road. This remarkable piece of pre-asphalt history was a wooden highway from Indiana to Joliet, without which wagons could not move people and goods across the prairie wilderness during the months-long mud season. In 1855 the Plank Road became a railroad, speeding the end of most Illinois prairie – except for 33-foot-wide rights-of-way, fenced off from cattle on both sides of railroad tracks. 

In the 1970s, the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory sought out all the true surviving prairie (as it turned out, less than 1/100^thof 1% of the original). At that time, prairie expert Marlin Bowles called the Plank Road Prairies the finest remnants of mesic black-soil prairie in Illinois. But they were spread out in patches along the 21 miles of abandoned tracks, between the villages of Matteson (Cook County) and Frankfort (Will County). 

This is Grade A prairie, but the Plank Road remnants were so much richer. If this photo showed one of the primo parts there, you'd also be looking at prairie gentian, prairie phlox, and white and purple prairie clover. 

The State bought the 21 miles of former railroad for $3,400,000 in 1992 and named it the Old Plank Road Trail. Here and there along those miles, the best 33-foot-wide prairie strips (totaling 13.39 acres) were dedicated as an Illinois Nature Preserve in July 1997. So far, so good? 

Sadly, not so. In today’s world, prairies need care. In 1997, an anti-environmental backlash (that had started when the snail darter and spotted owl ran afoul of economic powers) reached Illinois natural areas in the form of “The Moratorium” – especially in DuPage, Lake, and Will Counties. But the wreckage spread. (See Endnote 1 for fun details.)

When I finally had an excuse to check in on the Plank Road Prairies a few years ago, I was appalled. Great treasures that had glowed with quality and health were now sick and suffering under solid teasel, crown vetch, and brush. There was little indication of stewardship of any kind. By chance, the vibrant Orland Grassland Volunteers had attracted $7,000,000 in stewardship support, and the stewards had been encouraged to step aside to let the big machines and big money do their work. (Hmmmm? Are we being replaced?) The volunteers knew that they’d be needed again in a few years when the federal funds were gone, so how should they spend those few years? Gather seed? There was way too little local seed for this ambitious project. We checked out the Plank Road, found small (and shrinking) pockets of highest quality seed, surrounded by expanding disaster, so the Nature Preserves Commission approved a trade – volunteer stewardship for rare seed.  (Yet more fun details in Endnote 2.) 

Thus the heroic Orland Grassland Volunteers began a crash campaign of invasives control – brush cut and burned in winter, then on to teasel, crown vetch, and white sweet clover in summer. And once a year, the Orland and North Branch folks teamed up to burn.

The photos below provide a taste of this current era on the Plank Road. 

Rodney Dabe stands next to a leadplant. This unusual prairie shrub is rarely more than two feet tall – because it gets burned back every few years. The giant size of this one – when we first burned on March 28, 2012 – demonstrates no burning here for many, many years.

Not that it’s easy to care for a linear prairie. These apartments are totally safe during this fire (as it is brief – and started only with winds blowing well away), but a good “Be Good Friends To Neighbors” campaign is crucial for long-term. (See Endnote 3.)

Orland volunteers pull, cut, and haul sweet clover. Yellow flowers here are the prairie compass plant. Prairies need all-year-round care, and the stewards that give it develop a bond of intimacy, love, and responsibility.

People ride bikes and walk their dogs along the trail while we burn. It’s a great opportunity to explain what this nature preserve is all about. Local enthusiasts and advocates are needed. 

Hundreds of acres near the trail have conservation status of various kinds. They seem to get little stewardship. It’s needed. The partially melted nature sign in the photo above reminds us that new approaches and long term planning are needed. 

Wishful Thinking Map

The Google map of the Plank Road Prairies is largely wrong. What’s labeled “Nature Preserve” is private land, currently being developed. Most of the actual nature preserve (and possibly other adjacent conservation land?) is omitted.
(It would be so helpful if someone could check out ownerships and status and make a good map.) 

A Somewhat More Accurate Map

The actual nature preserve (extracted from the map above) would be contained within the above. But the 33-foot-wide preserve strips (on either side of the bike trail) are even narrower. Perhaps those two little green patches east and west of the blue showing the Butterfield Creek pond are relatively correct in width, but they're the wrong lengths.

The video above summarizes some of the Plank Road’s challenges. The huge fire made by the invasive common reed was upsetting to some neighbors – and nothing the conservationists want either. But controlling the spread of this menace requires more than the current (somewhat “borrowed”) stewards can handle. Maddeningly, this year a day long west wind switched to north shortly after this burn was ignited – blowing smoke over the nearby houses. The fire was easily controlled and safe, but not possible to extinguish without helicopters. It burned itself out in a few minutes, but that smoke and ash drifting toward the houses didn’t represent us as the kind of neighbors we strive to be. 

The neighborhoods near this prairie are full of thousands of kids, adults, nature lovers, adventure appreciators, and others who could be trained and empowered as stewards, if there were people with the time and skills to provide the leadership. Will a robust congregation build – that's sufficient to solve the stewardship problems and embed this treasure in the hearts of the community? We hope so.

Endnotes

Endnote 1

This preserve was established at just the wrong time. It owes its legal protection to the advocacy and constituency-building work by Dave Eubanks of the Openlands Project and others. It owes its initial stewardship to the impressive organizing of volunteer George Johnson, who found, trained and empowered 17 stewards to cover each of the 17 best miles. They sponsored events, celebrations, and tours. They cleared brush, burned, and vanquished invasives. 

But their support from the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission and The Nature Conservancy faded away when the whole conservation program came under attack. Launched by “machine Democrat ally” and Chicago Sun-Times editor and columnist Ray Coffey, the backlash soon was joined by much of the media and the Cook County board. Fueled mostly by residents of the northwest corner of Chicago, who were in part angry about the conservationists bringing Latino- and African-American middle school students to forest preserves in a neighborhood that had shocked Martin Luther King as displaying more hatred than he had experienced even in the deep South. 

Regardless of who comprised the base constituency of this backlash, its growing influence forced the conservationists to defend smaller and smaller territories. In Cook County, the conservation constituency struggled back from a complete shut-down for months – to severe restrictions for years – to an ultimate recovery that included the Next Century Plan) – probably the most ambitious conservation plan supported by any county anywhere. 

But for years Cook County conservationists had little left-over energies for those railroad prairies, which, indeed, were supposedly secured by their Illinois Nature Preserve status. Yet the Nature Preserves system did not maintain a popular base of support. Indeed, this formerly model institution faded into minor status within the state Department of Natural Resources, where the principal constituency was hunters and fishers. Good professional conservation staff had been building a good program, but they didn’t build a power base, and when the backlash came, the staff was cut back, and back. 

Technically, the INPC rep for Cook County is Steve Byers. He has about 70 preserves to care for in five counties. How much time does he have for each? Kim Roman, the INPC rep from the next region south (and whose office is closer), has pitched in mightily for Old Plank. But she has seven counties with more than 20 more preserves, so how much can she do? If Nature Preserves are not getting the care they need, Department of Natural Resources staff is supposed to step in. The DNR biologist responsible for the Plank Road is Dan Kirk. He’s responsible for 22 preserves spread over seven counties. Thus the need for volunteers – and indeed, for the kind of volunteers who’ll help build constituency for the whole program. Nature Preserves and Natural Heritage need more staff and more resources if our culture is remotely serious about protecting biodiversity and nature.  

Endnote 2

The Orland Grassland project played an important role in the ending of the Moratorium chapter referenced above. This 960-acre forest preserve was all former prairie and marsh but was languishing as more and more useless brush. Restoration seemed out of the question until Openlands and Audubon teamed up to make a howling success out of the nearby 375-acre Bartel Grassland project. Then a new team (bird advocate Wes Serafin, FPD staffer Jerry Sullivan, Joe Roth and Linda Masters of Openlands, Jerry Wilhelm of Conservation Research Institute, and I, then with Audubon) teamed up to propose, plan, and implement a Cook-County-unprecedented 960-acre grassland restoration. Old-school, moratorium-supporting elements of the staff stalled and disrupted for some time, but in the end the restoration not only succeeded, it also became deeply popular with the surrounding community. 

In 2010, U.S. Rep. Judy Biggart brought the Orland Grassland $7,000,000 in restoration funding through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Now the major brush would be obliterated by massive machines, and the Orland Grassland Volunteers could work more strategically. The Nature Preserves Commission was pleased as punch to work with this effective group and quickly approved the trade of seeds for weed control. Oddly, the Commission needed a sign-off from the Forest Preserve District because the Orland Grassland now has State protected status, and for a while, the Forest Preserve staff refused to approve the swap, arguing that the seeds were coming from too far away. The Plank Road Prairies are a few miles from Orland. When we at Audubon had responsibility for buying the seed for this huge project, we tried to get as much as we could from within 100 miles. Now that the Corps was taking over, even that limitation was abandoned. We argued that the nearby seed would add important genetic material to this restoration. But confusion, bureaucracy, and the memory of “The Moratorium” made for strange concerns. In the end, this good trade got the sign-off it needed.

When Openlands originally negotiated the protection of the Plank Road, one of the most challenging parts was “Who would be willing to own and manage it?” The miles through Will County were accepted by the Will County Forest Preserves. But the Cook County Forest Preserves turned down the offer. Thus the best parts of the prairie ended up in the ownership of the Village of Matteson (the mile from Cicero to Central) and Rich Township (the mile from Central to Ridgeland). Matteson and Rich had few resources to manage prairie nature preserves. They welcomed the help of volunteers supervised by the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission with open arms.  

These rare remnants of nature, in the words of Pat Hayes, were "fought for, largely abandoned, and recently reclaimed." Under the leadership of Pat Hayes, Bill Fath, and others, the Orland Grassland Volunteers have done wonders for many Old Plank prairie remnants. But more needs are waiting. 

This precious two-mile prairie strip deserves to be "discovered" by enough perceptive and generous people to give it the added care and support it deserves. It is to be hoped that more posts on this blog will cover more opportunities and triumphs. 

As a reminder, here's what Grade A prairie looks like - when it has good stewards:

Most prominent species in bloom here: cream false indigo, prairie phlox, and hoary puccoon -
but scores more species come into bloom from week to week, plus butterflies, and rare soil microorganisms,
and so much more - by their survival demonstrating what generous stewards can accomplish. 

Acknowledgments
Thanks for editorial suggestions (and, of course, heroic stewardship) to Pat Hayes.
Thanks for proofing and suggestions to Kathy Garness and Eriko Kojima. Other suggestions always invited.