Restoration project underway at Prairie Bluff Preserve in Crest Hill

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will spend $4.3 million on a prairie restoration project that will help provide groundwater to the rare dolomite prairie at Lockport Prairie Nature Preserve.

The prairie restoration will occur in the nearby Prairie Bluff Preserve, 671 acres of what today is mostly cornfields. The farm fields located along Renwick Road will be converted to prairie starting this winter.

“We really look forward to fulfilling the purpose of this project in five years,” Col. Aaron Reisinger, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Chicago District, said at a groundbreaking ceremony Monday at Prairie Bluff.

Reisinger joined officials from the Forest Preserve District of Will County, which owns Prairie Bluff and Lockport Prairie, in celebrating the project.

Reisinger noted the Army Corps has restored 4,100 acres of habitat in the Chicago District in 33 different projects under authority given to the agency to participate in restoration efforts.

Prairie Bluff Preserve is located on land once farmed by prisoners at Stateville Correctional Center, which is visible to the south of the preserve parking lot.

While the preserve today contains walking and biking trails, 600 acres of Prairie Bluff is made up of farm fields that the forest preserve district contracts out to farmers for crops.

Over five years that farmland will be converted to prairie, said Ralph Schultz, chief operating officer for the Forest Preserve District of Will County.

“Our job is to stop as much surface water from leaving this site so it can go underground,” Schultz said. “Once underground, it can flow to the Lockport Prairie.”

Lockport Prairie is east of the Prairie Bluff Preserve and on the other side of Route 53 in Lockport. Prairie Bluff provides half the groundwater that goes to the Lockport Prairie.

According to the forest preserve district, more than half of the “high-quality wet dolomite prairie in the world” is located in Lockport Prairie Preserve.

The preserve contains a unique habitat of thin prairie soil over dolomite bedrock that is fed by both surface water and groundwater.

The preserve is home to endangered species, including the Hine’s emerald dragonfly and the lakeside daisy.