|
Creek
is given checkup by swarm of volunteers
Chicago Tribune
- 7/24
Wading
a few steps into slow-moving Big Rock Creek in southwest Kane
County, state biologist Bob Szafoni wasted no time illustrating
the point of his two-day visit to survey and test the quality
of the waterway.
He
submerged his hands and "noodled," in survey lingo.
In less than a minute, he extracted a dark mollusk, a prime example
of the clams and mussels he was training volunteers to find.
The aim of the state-run creek survey was to compile and evaluate
basic data on the ecological fitness of a waterway the state already
has classified as one of the healthiest in northeastern Illinois.
"The
idea is to see how many live animals you can find in a set period
of time--in this case a minimum of four man-hours [at each of
14 locations in the creek]," said Szafoni of the Department
of Natural Resources.
The
few dozen volunteers varied in age and environmental experience--from
students to scientists--and they came from agencies as varied
as the Kane-DuPage Soil and Water Conservation District and Chicago's
Shedd Aquarium.
"Your
task is to find as many [mollusks] as you can and as many species
as you can," Szafoni told them.
The
survey work was concluded Tuesday, but it will be at least a few
weeks before results are analyzed. It may be winter before any
conclusions or results are made public, said Bob Rung, a streams
biologist in the department's Plano-area office, who has been
assigned to write the final report.
What
the volunteers found will help determine whether Big Rock Creek
makes it onto the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory, a list of
high-quality waterways and ecosystems in the state. If it does,
it could have a lasting impact on the future of the creek and
the way developers propose projects in its watershed.
Big
Rock Creek originates in southeastern DeKalb County and flows
south and east through southern Kane and Kendall Counties before
emptying into the Fox River just south of Plano.
Szafoni
said parts of the watershed were awash with creatures.
"We
definitely had some stations that had rare species at them. At
Jericho Road, we got some spike mussels, which is listed by the
state [as endangered]," Szafoni said. "At some of the
other sites, we got a really good number of other species and
a good number of individuals. There were lots of clams and there
were lots of different kinds of clams, and that's usually a really
good sign. We don't see conditions like that in very many places.
"Based
on our survey work, we definitely found some stretches of the
creek that are in really excellent shape. They have a good diversity
of animals living in them."
But
other stretches of the creek produced little.
"There
didn't seem to be [evidence of] the critters that should be there
and weren't, so obviously there's something going on that is just
making it not a good place for animals to live," Szafoni
said.
Based
on a fish survey last year and a macro-invertebrate survey of
Big Rock Creek, the Department of Natural Resources has classified
segments of the waterway as having both "unique" and
"highly valued aquatic resources." But the mussel survey
"gives you a lot better insight into the quality of the stream,"
Rung said.
The
areas on the list "are not necessarily all pristine but they
are definitely in the top 5 to 10 percent of all such sites across
the state and there are criteria that a site has to meet to get
on that inventory," Szafoni said. "It recognizes [a
site] as being one of the last and best places in Illinois that
has the highest natural quality and the most native species. There
aren't many places like that left."
Being
listed on the inventory would trigger more review of any development
in the nearly 123,000-acre Big Rock watershed that might affect
the creek, Rung said.
Portions
of a 300-foot-wide transportation corridor through Kane and Kendall
Counties being considered as a possible path for an outer-belt
expressway cut through the watershed.
"It
doesn't necessarily stop anything," said Brook McDonald of
the Naperville-based Conservation Foundation. "More importantly,
and what we're interested in is, it forces the planners and the
developers to begin to do better development, development that
doesn't trash the environment."
NOTICE: In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C., section 107, some material is provided without
permission from the copyright owner, only for purposes of
criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair
use" provisions of federal copyright laws. These materials
may not be distributed further, except for "fair use,"
without permission of the copyright owner.
|