Hadley Valley Preserve in Joliet ‘an awesome success story’ of wetland restoration

Two decades worth of habitat restoration efforts were celebrated by local environmental stakeholders and members of the public who gathered Friday at the Hadley Valley Forest Preserve in Joliet.

Thanks to the restoration efforts, which have earned both state and national recognition, the preserve is now home to a wide variety of insects, birds, aquatic invertebrates, fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, along with a range of plants, including tall swamp marigold, wahoo, great angelica, yellow avens and shingle oak.

“Hadley Valley is a living, breathing example of what long-term restoration and collaboration can achieve,” said Tracy Chapman, executive director of the Forest Preserve District of Will County.

The event was co-hosted by the forest preserve district and Openlands, a conservation organization that works to protect natural and open spaces in northeastern Illinois and the surrounding region.

These efforts are the largest in the history of the forest preserve district, which acquired the 854-acre Hadley Valley Forest Preserve between 2000 and 2014.

As part of the effort, more than 192 acres were restored, including about 60 acres of wetlands restoration.

The work included stream de-channelization, wetland restoration and wildlife habitat restoration through a partnership with the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, Openlands and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

How it came to be

The work was made possible through a $26 million grant from the O’Hare Modernization Program. The organization was selected in 2005 by the city of Chicago “to lead the largest restoration initiative the region had ever seen,” which was “born out of the expansion of O’Hare airport,” Openlands President and CEO Michael Davidson said.

He said when O’Hare International Airport expanded, more than 280 acres of wetlands was lost. Due to the Clean Water Act, the city was required to mitigate the loss by restoring or creating wetlands.

Openlands officially has completed the restoration and monitoring of five key sites, including Hadley Valley, and in total has restored 520 wetland acres and 1,620 acres of natural space adjacent to those wetlands.

“These represent a rare model of large-scale, high-quality restoration in a metro region,” Davidson said. “This project shows what is possible when pairing significant investment with long-term stewardship.”

Large landscapes such as the Hadley Valley Preserve offer residents “a chance to connect with open space on a meaningful level,” Davidson said. “They are not just beautiful or good for our health, the environment or wildlife – they are practical. They improve water quality and reduce flooding, and most importantly, in this part of the metro area, they recharge groundwater, which is critical in a region where aquifers are under stress and communities are investing heavily in infrastructure to access Lake Michigan water.”

Juli Mason, the forest preserve district’s ecological management supervisor, who has been involved in the project since its inception in 2006, said the initial step of hydrology was very important to the project’s success.

“You only get one shot at it,” she said.

When the forest preserve district acquired the property, Spring Creek was a straight farm ditch, and “we had the opportunity to reconstruct it into a healthier, more natural meandering [waterway],” Mason said.

The other parts of the project were a little bit of “science meets art,” she said.

After projecting which areas were going to be water after the hydrology restoration, the next step included planting plans, and “the closer we can get to matching the plants to the hydrology, the better,” Mason said.

Long-term benefits

One of the biggest benefits of the changed hydrology of Spring Creek, Mason said, is the reduced flooding downstream in Joliet.

Since the project was completed in several phases, those involved were able to “tweak” their planting approaches for the following phases, Mason said.

Barbara Sherwood, a restoration ecologist for the forest preserve district, said that following the remeandering of Spring Creek, freshwater mussels were found within the first year, and a few years later, ellipse mussels have been found.

“It is just one more thing to attest to [that] this is working,” Sherwood said. “We didn’t introduce them. They found a way.”

Sherwood said that mussels are stationary and hook into the gills of fish.

“That is how they got here. Creating this naturalized stream brings the fish back, and the fish bring other things,” Sherwood said. “We not only have the habitat on the land, but the habitat in the water, which is an awesome success story.”