Emiquon Project
Encyclopedia
The Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge is a 11122 acres (45 km²) wetland
wildlife refuge located in Fulton County, Illinois
across the Illinois River from the town of Havana
. It is in the Central forest-grasslands transition
ecoregion
.
Most of the wildlife refuge is made up of reclaimed agricultural land. A 7100 acres (28.7 km²) reclamation project within the Refuge, the Emiquon Project, is operated by the Nature Conservancy, which is a partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the creation of the Refuge.
s created by the Illinois River
during the geological period that followed the last ice age
. Heavy loads of sand
and silt
carried southwest by the river created almost random, undulating topography along the river's bed. The river responded to these deposits by repeatedly shifting its course, leaving long, narrow sections of abandoned riverbed behind it. Two of these sections became Flag Lake and Thompson Lake.
Surrounding these two lakes, and strung out along the western bank of the Illinois River, was a characteristic North American riverine ecosystem
characterized by dense populations of shellfish, fish, migratory birds, and mammals. The Emiquon wetland became a favorite home for many Indians of the Illinois Territory for thousands of years, leaving 149 known archeological sites behind them within the parcels of land that make up the Project. These hunter-gatherers used and lived in and around both the wetlands of Emiqon and the adjacent river bluffs. During the centuries between 1000 CE and 1300 CE, many of them buried their dead in an adjacent blufftop, now the Dickson Mounds
National Historic Site.
When new Americans of European ancestry began living along the Illinois River in the late 17th century, they brought several wetland diseases with them, notably malaria
. Local Indian populations declined, and the settlers tried not to live in or near wetlands, believing them to be unhealthy places to live. When Fulton County was organized in 1823, the settlers selected a blufftop location several miles away as the county seat.
A population of local Illinois River settlers thinly settled the Emiquon riverbank, which was too wet for traditional European-style farming. The region continued to yield a living to fur trappers, hunters, and fishermen. However, in 1919 Joy Morton
, a wealthy Chicago CEO, acquired the Emiquon area and had a levee built around it and drainage ditches dug. Emiquon became the Norris Farm, and the former wetlands and lake beds were drained and converted into cornfields. The formerly free-flowing Illinois River was dammed and confined to a narrow channel running between artificial banks. Much of Emiquon was low-lying and required periodic pumping with electric motors so that the land could remain dry and useful as farmland.
s lobbied for restoration of parts of the riverbed and former wetlands. After extended negotiations, the Nature Conservancy acquired the 7100 acres (28.7 km²) property in 2000. In 2007, the Conservancy enrolled a 6400 acres (25.9 km²) parcel within the Project in the federally-subsidized Wetlands Reserve Program
.
By 2008, volunteers working with the Nature Conservancy had replanted 300,000 wetland tree
s, including black walnut
s, swamp white oak
s, and pecan
s, and 8,000 pounds of grassland seed
. The Conservancy believed that the Emiquon Project was the second largest wetlands restoration project in the United States, behind the Restoration of the Everglades
.
As part of the restoration efforts, drainage pumps were turned off and one of the natural lake beds within the Project, Thompson Lake, began to refill. As of 2008, Thompson Lake was a 2000 acres (8.1 km²) lake within the Project. This compares to the lake's original size of 1800 acres (7.3 km²) when it was a natural lake. The reborn lake and adjacent wetlands were attractive to waterbirds, with 17 separate species of duck
s reported.
As of 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's long-range master plan for the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge including acquiring the Emiquon Project's land, building out the refuge's 11122 acres (45 km²) footprint, and enrolling the new Refuge into the Illinois River National Wildlife Refuge Complex, managed from the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge
's headquarters in Havana.
, bluegill
, bullhead
, channel catfish
, crappie
, and sunfish
. Several dozen fish-eating black-crowned night heron
s had also arrived.
In addition to game fish, heritage fish were also planted in Flag Lake and Thompson Lake, such as the state-endangered redspotted sunfish and the state-threatened starhead topminnow.
The Conservancy also planned to construct welcome facilities to encourage birdwatchers and other visitors to enjoy the reborn wetland. The Emiquon Project's location, within 40 miles (64 km) of Peoria
and adjacent to the established Dickson Mounds museum, was expected to help draw visitors.
In April 2008, the University of Illinois at Springfield
opened a field station at Emiquon to conduct research and monitor restoration progress.
Illinois Route 78
and Illinois Route 97
run through the Emiquon Project. The state highways run concurrently in the Project region.
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
wildlife refuge located in Fulton County, Illinois
Fulton County, Illinois
Fulton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 37,069, which is a decrease of 3.1% from 38,250 in 2000. Its county seat is Lewistown. Canton is the largest city. Both cities are southwest of Peoria, and the county is considered...
across the Illinois River from the town of Havana
Havana, Illinois
Havana is a city in Mason County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,577 at the 2000 census, and 3,260 at a 2009 estimate. It is the county seat of Mason County.-Geography:...
. It is in the Central forest-grasslands transition
Central forest-grasslands transition
The Central forest-grasslands transition are a prairie ecoregion of the central United States, part of the North American Great Plains.-Setting:...
ecoregion
Ecoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...
.
Most of the wildlife refuge is made up of reclaimed agricultural land. A 7100 acres (28.7 km²) reclamation project within the Refuge, the Emiquon Project, is operated by the Nature Conservancy, which is a partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the creation of the Refuge.
History
The Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge and the Emiquon Project cover the historic beds of Flag Lake and Thompson Lake, which were shallow, alluvial lakeLake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...
s created by the Illinois River
Illinois River
The Illinois River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately long, in the State of Illinois. The river drains a large section of central Illinois, with a drainage basin of . This river was important among Native Americans and early French traders as the principal water route...
during the geological period that followed the last ice age
Wisconsin glaciation
The last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age occurring during the last years of the Pleistocene, from approximately 110,000 to 10,000 years ago....
. Heavy loads of sand
Sand
Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...
and silt
Silt
Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...
carried southwest by the river created almost random, undulating topography along the river's bed. The river responded to these deposits by repeatedly shifting its course, leaving long, narrow sections of abandoned riverbed behind it. Two of these sections became Flag Lake and Thompson Lake.
Surrounding these two lakes, and strung out along the western bank of the Illinois River, was a characteristic North American riverine ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
characterized by dense populations of shellfish, fish, migratory birds, and mammals. The Emiquon wetland became a favorite home for many Indians of the Illinois Territory for thousands of years, leaving 149 known archeological sites behind them within the parcels of land that make up the Project. These hunter-gatherers used and lived in and around both the wetlands of Emiqon and the adjacent river bluffs. During the centuries between 1000 CE and 1300 CE, many of them buried their dead in an adjacent blufftop, now the Dickson Mounds
Dickson Mounds
Dickson Mounds is a Native American settlement site and burial mound complex near Lewistown, Illinois, is located in Fulton County on a low bluff overlooking the Illinois River. It is a large burial complex containing at least two cemeteries, ten burial mounds, and a platform mound. Dickson Mounds...
National Historic Site.
When new Americans of European ancestry began living along the Illinois River in the late 17th century, they brought several wetland diseases with them, notably malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. Local Indian populations declined, and the settlers tried not to live in or near wetlands, believing them to be unhealthy places to live. When Fulton County was organized in 1823, the settlers selected a blufftop location several miles away as the county seat.
A population of local Illinois River settlers thinly settled the Emiquon riverbank, which was too wet for traditional European-style farming. The region continued to yield a living to fur trappers, hunters, and fishermen. However, in 1919 Joy Morton
Joy Morton
, Joy Morton founded the Morton Salt Company and The Morton Arboretum.Morton grew to manhood in Nebraska City, Nebraska in Nebraska Territory. His mother, Caroline Joy, was an accomplished artist, musician, and gardener...
, a wealthy Chicago CEO, acquired the Emiquon area and had a levee built around it and drainage ditches dug. Emiquon became the Norris Farm, and the former wetlands and lake beds were drained and converted into cornfields. The formerly free-flowing Illinois River was dammed and confined to a narrow channel running between artificial banks. Much of Emiquon was low-lying and required periodic pumping with electric motors so that the land could remain dry and useful as farmland.
Restoration project
Throughout the 20th century, alterations to the Illinois riverbed caused severe damage to the ecological diversity and fish productivity of the river. Beginning in the 1960s, naturalistNaturalist
Naturalist may refer to:* Practitioner of natural history* Conservationist* Advocate of naturalism * Naturalist , autobiography-See also:* The American Naturalist, periodical* Naturalism...
s lobbied for restoration of parts of the riverbed and former wetlands. After extended negotiations, the Nature Conservancy acquired the 7100 acres (28.7 km²) property in 2000. In 2007, the Conservancy enrolled a 6400 acres (25.9 km²) parcel within the Project in the federally-subsidized Wetlands Reserve Program
Wetlands Reserve Program
The Wetlands Reserve Program is a voluntary program offering landowners the opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands on their property. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service administers the program with funding from the Commodity Credit Corporation.- Establishment :The WRP...
.
By 2008, volunteers working with the Nature Conservancy had replanted 300,000 wetland tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
s, including black walnut
Black Walnut
Juglans nigra, the Eastern Black walnut, is a species of flowering tree in the hickory family, Juglandaceae, that is native to eastern North America. It grows mostly in riparian zones, from southern Ontario, west to southeast South Dakota, south to Georgia, northern Florida and southwest to central...
s, swamp white oak
White oak
Quercus alba, the white oak, is one of the pre-eminent hardwoods of eastern North America. It is a long-lived oak of the Fagaceae family, native to eastern North America and found from southern Quebec west to eastern Minnesota and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas. Specimens have been...
s, and pecan
Pecan
The pecan , Carya illinoinensis, is a species of hickory, native to south-central North America, in Mexico from Coahuila south to Jalisco and Veracruz, in the United States from southern Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana east to western Kentucky, southwestern Ohio, North Carolina, South...
s, and 8,000 pounds of grassland seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
. The Conservancy believed that the Emiquon Project was the second largest wetlands restoration project in the United States, behind the Restoration of the Everglades
Restoration of the Everglades
The restoration of the Everglades is an ongoing effort to remedy damage inflicted on the environment of southern Florida during the 20th century. It is the most expensive and comprehensive environmental repair attempt in history. The degradation of the Everglades became an issue in the United...
.
As part of the restoration efforts, drainage pumps were turned off and one of the natural lake beds within the Project, Thompson Lake, began to refill. As of 2008, Thompson Lake was a 2000 acres (8.1 km²) lake within the Project. This compares to the lake's original size of 1800 acres (7.3 km²) when it was a natural lake. The reborn lake and adjacent wetlands were attractive to waterbirds, with 17 separate species of duck
Duck
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...
s reported.
As of 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's long-range master plan for the Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge including acquiring the Emiquon Project's land, building out the refuge's 11122 acres (45 km²) footprint, and enrolling the new Refuge into the Illinois River National Wildlife Refuge Complex, managed from the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge
Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge
The Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge is located on the Illinois River in Mason County northeast of Havana, Illinois. It is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as one of the four Illinois River National Wildlife and Fish Refuges....
's headquarters in Havana.
Current resources
The Conservancy's long-range master plan for the Emiquon Project, meanwhile, included restoration of the parcel's natural drainage patterns to the maximum extent possible, including reconstruction of a free-flowing connection between the Illinois River and Thompson Lake. As of 2008, the refilled lakes were stocked with more than 30 species of fish, including largemouth bassLargemouth bass
The largemouth bass is a species of black bass in the sunfish family native to North America . It is also known as widemouth bass, bigmouth, black bass, bucketmouth, Potter's fish, Florida bass, Florida largemouth, green bass, green trout, linesides, Oswego bass, southern largemouth...
, bluegill
Bluegill
The Bluegill is a species of freshwater fish sometimes referred to as bream, brim, or copper nose. It is a member of the sunfish family Centrarchidae of the order Perciformes.-Range and distribution:...
, bullhead
Bullhead
-Fishes:* Certain sculpins, including:** European bullhead, Cottus gobio** Siberian bullhead, Cottus poecilopus** Norway bullhead, Taurulus Liljeborgi* Catfish of the genus Ameiurus, including:** Black bullhead, Ameiurus melas...
, channel catfish
Channel catfish
Channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States they are the most fished catfish species with approximately 8...
, crappie
Crappie
Crappie is a genus of freshwater fish in the sunfish family of order Perciformes. The type species is P. annularis, the white crappie...
, and sunfish
Centrarchidae
The sunfishes are a family of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the order Perciformes. The type genus is Centrarchus . The family's 27 species includes many fishes familiar to North Americans, including the rock bass, largemouth bass, bluegill, pumpkinseed, and crappies...
. Several dozen fish-eating black-crowned night heron
Black-crowned Night Heron
The Black-crowned Night Heron commonly abbreviated to just Night Heron in Eurasia, is a medium-sized heron found throughout a large part of the world, except in the coldest regions and Australasia .-Description:Adults are...
s had also arrived.
In addition to game fish, heritage fish were also planted in Flag Lake and Thompson Lake, such as the state-endangered redspotted sunfish and the state-threatened starhead topminnow.
The Conservancy also planned to construct welcome facilities to encourage birdwatchers and other visitors to enjoy the reborn wetland. The Emiquon Project's location, within 40 miles (64 km) of Peoria
Peoria, Illinois
Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...
and adjacent to the established Dickson Mounds museum, was expected to help draw visitors.
In April 2008, the University of Illinois at Springfield
University of Illinois at Springfield
The University of Illinois at Springfield is a public university in Springfield, Illinois. The University was established in 1969 as Sangamon State University by the Illinois General Assembly and became a part of the University of Illinois system on July 1, 1995.The University of Illinois at...
opened a field station at Emiquon to conduct research and monitor restoration progress.
Illinois Route 78
Illinois Route 78
Illinois Route 78 is a major north–south highway in western Illinois. It runs from Illinois Route 104 northwest of Jacksonville north to Highway 78 at the Wisconsin state line north of Warren...
and Illinois Route 97
Illinois Route 97
Illinois Route 97 is a north–south state highway in the central and western portions of the U.S. state of Illinois. It extends from exit 98 on Interstate 55 in Springfield northwest to U.S. Highway 150 near Galesburg. It crosses over the Illinois River on a bridge west of...
run through the Emiquon Project. The state highways run concurrently in the Project region.