Good Oak News: ACTION ALERT: Save Bell Bowl Prairie!

UPDATE 10/28/21: In the face of multiple lawsuits by local environmental advocacy groups, airport has relented! At least temporarily. According to the local news channel website, mystateline.com, Zack Oakley, the Deputy Director of Operations and Planning at RFD, released the following statement: “During the coming months, we will continue to work with the FAA, IDNR, and the USFWS to ensure the project continues and we can plan and develop in compliance with the Federal and state regulations for the endangered species. The FAA is reinitiating consultation under the Endangered Species Act with the USFWS to evaluate impacts to the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, so planned construction initially scheduled to continue on November 1 will be suspended until further consultation is completed. We anticipate the resumption of the project in the spring of 2022.”

This doesn't exactly proclaim that the airport is committed to preserving the remaining ~18 acres of virgin prairie at Bell Bowl. As such, local conservationists are cautiously optimistic, and watching for the airports next move carefully. Be sure you keep yourself informed at the links below. Special Thanks to the Natural Lands Institute for spearheading the resistance.

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This is my statement, on behalf of Good Oak Ecological Services, on the imminent threat to Bell Bowl Prairie adjacent to the Chicago-Rockford International Airport in Rockford, IL. This irreplaceable prairie remnant is scheduled to be destroyed on Nov. 1st, unless we can convince the Greater Rockford Airport Authority Board of Commissioners and other stakeholders to yield to public outcry and literally stop the bulldozers.

Find out what you can do at: https://www.savebellbowlprairie.org/home/#what-can-i-do

Keep updated on the latest news at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/savebellbowlprairie

#SaveBellBowlPrairie

I was born, and raised on a farm in “The Prairie State.” I was actively involved in Boy Scouts, and did a lot of camping, hiking, biking and fishing as a child. But like most Illinois residents, I went my entire youth without seeing an actual prairie. That was, until my first week at the University of Illinois, when I accidentally signed-up for a prairie tour at Quad Day. What I experienced on that tour was so stunning and delightful that it shook my understanding of the world, and reset the course of my career and my life.

But I understand that most people have not been as fortunate as I have to have such an experience. After all, there is so precious little prairie left (less than 1/100th of 1%, or the equivalent of 1 penny left out of $100), that it’s no wonder that most people have never had the opportunity to visit a real prairie remnant. And therefore most people have never had the chance to develop a concept of what once was, and what we have left.

So, it is difficult for us to put into perspective what the loss of Bell Bowl Prairie would mean. For a more contemporary example: Suppose that, 50 years from now, we have logged, slashed and burned our way across the Amazon basin, and there are just a few-dozen acres of Amazon rainforest left. These ecosystem fragments are scattered across thousands of square miles of a landscape dominated tropical graze-land and soybean fields. And then, what if there was a plan to bulldoze one of these last gems of rainforest for something as meaningless as a highway expansion? Shouldn’t we protect these last remaining fragments? Shouldn’t we simply move the highway someplace else?

Or what if, 50 years from now we have destroyed all but the last patches of coral reef around the globe through climate change? Should we be willing to wreck one of the last few intact coral reefs in the world, or rather, in all of the universe, for something as relatively inconsequential as a port expansion project?

This is exactly what is being proposed being done to the Bell Bowl Prairie at the Chicago-Rockford International Airport. One of the last few original fragments of tallgrass prairie in the world, and furthermore it is a specialized habitat called a gravel hill prairie, is scheduled to be destroyed November 1st. And this destruction is entirely unnecessary. The airport owns hundreds of acres just slightly further south where this expansion could go instead. This is not a case of ‘the economy vs nature;’ this destruction of our irreplaceable natural heritage is entirely unnecessary.

There are thousands of species of plants, animals and fungi - yes thousands - that inhabit the Bell Bowl Prairie, most of which are now rare and nearing extinction globally. But to highlight at least one species in particular, there is the Rusty Patch Bumblebee which is listed federally as an Endangered Species. Endangered status is supposed to be the greatest level of protection possible for the species at most risk of extinction, from ceasing to exist forever. However, this status is not protecting this population of bees and the habitat they rely on for continued survival.

Delaying the bulldozing of Bell Bowl Prairie until November 1st is meaningless in preventing the destruction of this population of endangered pollinators. Rusty Patch Bumblebees nest primarily in abandoned burrows of small mammals. The queen bees survive through the winter sleeping in these burrows, which are certainly located within the bounds of the prairie, until they can emerge in the warm days of early spring. Whether these bees are killed while they are above ground, or unsuspectingly in their sleep - these bees are still being killed. Surely, this destruction of endangered animals violates the intention of the Endangered Species Act.

As the world’s premier biologist, E. O. Wilson has said: “We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.” Or, in the words of pioneering conservationist Aldo Leopold: “…To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”

Infrastructure can be moved or replaced. Though this development project at the airport may seem urgent now, it can be changed. The same is not true for a prairie.

I have spent my 25-year career learning about ecology and implementing projects to restore and attempt to replace natural areas. As someone who has dedicated their life to this work, I can tell you that the complex matrix of living organisms that is a prairie remnant is something that we do not today, and probably will never have, the knowledge and technology to replace. This is particularly the case if we needlessly destroy all of our scraps, wheels and cogs before we even try to restore what we have damaged.

There is another path we can take. Do the right thing and turn the bulldozers around. Rework the project plan for a location a bit further south. Preserve this rare gem of original Illinois prairie. In the future we can celebrate what the Greater Rockford Airport Authority has done to preserve and steward this site, and share it with the local community, and visitors alike.

I am asking those with the power to change this, the Greater Rockford Airport Authority Board of Commissioners, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and others, to please, take the following steps:

Delay and reposition this development project to an alternate location where it will not destroy or negatively impact Bell Bowl Prairie.
Make assurances that this prairie will be preserved perpetually, such as submitting it for protection as a State Nature Preserve.
Work with experts in the field to plant a native vegetation buffer around the prairie remnant to help protect it from impacts of surrounding development.
Allow the establishment of a volunteer stewardship group to access and conduct management of the prairie in order to restore, preserve and enhance the Bell Bowl Prairie.

Most Sincerely,
Frank Hassler
Owner, and Chief Ecologist
Good Oak Ecological Services

PS: I have never been to Bell Bowl Prairie (I can only hope that I will have a chance in the future!), but I thought I'd finish with some photos I have taken at other gravel hill prairies that are here in southern Wisconsin:


Black Earth Rettenmund Prairie in July.

Pasque flower at Westport Drumlin, among the first flower to bloom each April.

Birdsfoot Violet has leaves like no Violet you have ever seen. These were at Westport Drumlin Prairie.

Hoary puccoon, and the other prairie puccoons, are plants that are only found on prairie remnants because we have not been able to figure out how to grow them from seed. They will only survive as long as we preserver remnants like Bell Bowl Prairie.There were photographed at nearby Nachusa Grassland.