Baker's Lake Christmas Trees - April, 2013

Thursday, April 4th, 12 Citizens for Conservation volunteers and numerous Cook County Forest Preserve Police and Crabtree Nature Center staff assembled to repeat an annual trek across Baker's Lake, taking Christmas trees to the island heron rookery to create nesting habitat.  Some years the trees are dragged across the ice behind snowmobiles. During mild winters, like the last one, the ice never gets thick enough for safe passage and the trees are taken across by boat in the spring.  Volunteers arrived at 9 a.m. and moved the trees donated by a Christmas tree seller or collected by the Village of Barrington from residents. The trees were loaded out of the parking lot and into the launch area.

Then nine CFC volunteers boated to the island to remove last year's Christmas trees from the tubes and threw them in the water around the island. Boatload by boatload volunteers, police and staff unloaded over 150 new trees and placed them upright in tubes, leaned them against structures, or tossed them around the perimeter to create additional ground level nesting sites - great egrets in particular favor nesting on the perimeter trees.

Most of the volunteers had to leave by noon, but four stayed on the island to finish pruning cavities in the trees large enough for a black-crowned night-heron nest and to install the last of the three new prototype nesting structures designed for great blue herons.  By 2 p.m. the parking lot was empty of trees, boats and cars and the island looked like a miniature evergreen forest, ready for this season's 300 heron and cormorant families.  And the great egrets and double-crested cormorants flying and swimming around the lake during the workday had already returned to the island.

View Photos from the Event

Citizens for Conservation Receives Important Land Donation

Twenty-Two Acre Open Land Parcel Creates New Craftsbury Preserve,
a gift in honor of Art and Carol Rice

LAKE BARRINGTON, IL – Citizens for Conservation (CFC), one of the oldest and most successful volunteer conservation groups in Illinois, today announced that it has received a donation of approximately twenty-two acres in honor of Art and Carol Rice from their children Art Rice III, Carol Bowditch, and Emily Douglass. The new property, located southeast of Cuba Road and N. Hart Road in Cuba Township, will be named Craftsbury Preserve in memory of the original 32-acre Craftsbury Farm Arthur L. Rice Jr. and his wife Carol purchased in 1955.

Craftsbury Preserve is surrounded by large-lot developments and bordered on the north by the 8-acre Walk On Farm. The property has approximately twelve acres of uplands with remnants of sedge meadows and grasses and about ten acres of wetlands that extend across N. Hart Road to the west. The land donation provides CFC with an opportunity to protect wetlands that drain into an important recharge area and provide water storage and flood protection to neighboring areas, as identified by the Barrington Area Council of Governments and the 2007 Flint Creek Watershed Plan.

CFC’s Land Preservation Chairman Alberto Moriondo stated, “We are very grateful to the Rice family for this extremely generous donation. The Rice family has supported CFC since its incorporation in 1971; Art Rice Jr. was one of CFC’s first members, and Art Rice III is a Life Member and former CFC Board Member. The Rice Family and their Foundation have been major benefactors over the years. Art and Carol Rice passed away in 2002 and 2010 respectively, but thanks to this donation, their legacy will continue for many years to come.”

Art Rice III said, “Carol and Emily and I are very pleased to make this donation to CFC, an organization that is the recognized land steward in the Barrington area. It is a way for us to recognize our parents, who loved this land and would have wanted it protected in perpetuity. We are convinced that through CFC’s restoration efforts, the land will evolve into a marsh surrounded by sedge meadows, prairies and savannas, a protected oasis amidst our area’s vanishing heritage.”
Since 2005, CFC has been successful in securing over 97 acres of open space in the Barrington area, both directly and by working with private entities and local governments. With this new addition, CFC now owns 403 acres and over the past 42 years has helped protect almost 3,100 acres in the Barrington area. CFC’s Land Preservation Committee believes that current market conditions are very favorable for land preservation and is committed to continuing its programs in the months and years ahead.

About Citizens for Conservation

Citizens for Conservation has been a leading environmental steward in the Barrington area for the last forty-two years. Incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 1971, CFC acquires and receives donations of land for preservation and restoration while also providing both adult and children’s education to local communities. Its cutting-edge restorations provide habitat for threatened species of plants and animals such as the sandhill crane, and its educational outreach provides residents with programs about native plants, water conservation, pollinators, coyotes, deer, and other subjects of local interest. Each day CFC volunteers live the organization’s mission of “Saving Living Space for Living Things through protection, restoration and stewardship of land, conservation of natural resources and education.” For more information please visit www.citizensforconservation.org

Media Contact: Alberto Moriondo, Chairman, CFC Land Preservation Committee, 847.877.6886

Citizens for Conservation Restoration Volunteers Begin Winter Schedule

CFC restoration volunteers have launched their winter schedule, working every Saturday morning from 9 to 11 a.m. Brush cutting and all of its aerobic exercise energizes these hardy workers as they free native trees from the clutches of invasive brush.

Meet at CFC headquarters at 459 West Highway 22 in Lake Barrington.  Look for the white farmhouse with a silo across from Good Shepherd Hopsital.  Bring work gloves and dress for the weather.  CFC will provde the tools.  For more information, call CFC at 847-382-SAVE (7283).

Citizens for Conservation expands Flint Creek Savanna preserve

Citizens for Conservation expands Flint Creek Savanna preserve

by Alberto Moriondo

 

Last month, Citizens for Conservation (CFC) announced that it is expanding its Flint Creek Savanna preserve by acquiring the three remaining lots in the Foley Court Subdivision. This brings to a successful conclusion an initiative the Land Preservation Committee began in 2005 when it purchased one of the lots in the subdivision and received a donation of the adjacent five-acre wetland. This is a strategic parcel given its proximity to Flint Creek Savanna and demonstrates that CFC’s patience and determination ultimately yield excellent results.

In 2005, at the height of the real estate boom, a developer made plans to build an eight-house subdivision along Henry Lane in Lake Barrington. He wished to annex a five-acre parcel located in unincorporated Cuba Township to add to an existing pre-approved four-house subdivision on five acres in Lake Barrington. This subdivision would have altered radically the nature of the existing neighborhood along Henry Lane and would have impacted severely CFC’s Flint Creek Savanna. Led by CFC member Kirsten Moriondo, neighbors mobilized and successfuly blocked the proposed five-acre annexation to Lake Barrington. The developer came back with a revised proposal to build four houses on his Lake Barrington lot. That is when CFC intervened and reached an agreement that resulted in CFC’s purchase of Lot #4 (the northwest lot) and the donation of the adjacent five-acre wetland for a total that preserved more than six acres. This acquisition provided an ecological buffer to CFC’s Flint Creek Savanna and enabled construction of a water detention system that respected the mandated buffer zones without the need for any variations as requested by the developer.

Fast forward to 2012. After the collapse of the real estate bubble, the proposed housing development was not built and went into foreclosure. However, CFC had remained vigilant to ensure that if and when someone wanted to build on this property, we could intervene. In fact, we did. When we learned that the bank that owned the foreclosed property was ready to sell the remaining three lots to a new developer, we rapidly mobilized. With the help of our long-time legal counsel Dave Lynam, we successfully negotiated and purchased the three roughly one-acre lots at a unit price that was approximately half of what we paid at the height of the real estate boom.

                                       (click on Image to enlarge)

As part of the ensuing negotiations, CFC gave the other bidding party an option to purchase one of the three lots, thus mitigating our overall financial commitment and the extent of the potential development of this subdivision. In addition, we are in discussions with the Village of Lake Barrington to vacate the Foley Court Road and turn it into open space. We see this as a win-win situation for all parties involved, but more importantly one in which CFC’s persistence and long-term vision prevailed.

Since 2005, CFC has been successful in securing over fifty acres of open space in the Barrington area, both directly and by working with private and local government entities. With this new addition, CFC now has 376 acres under management, and over the past forty years we have helped protect more than 3,000 acres in the Barrington Area Council of Governments area. In the last seven years we have secured 155 acres of open space both directly and by working with the Village of Lake Barrington and the Lake County Forest Preserve District. CFC’s Land Preservation Committee believes that current market conditions are very favorable for land preservation and is committed to expanding its 
natural lands initiatives in the months and years ahead.

Annual Fall Native Tree and Shrub Sale Cancelled

Due to drought conditions, Citizens for Conservation is cancelling its Annual Fall Native Tree and Shrub Sale. CFC cannot deliver its usual selection of healthy plants after this hot, dry summer, and we do not advise planting new material from any source in this dry, compacted soil.  In addition, newly planted shrubs and trees require regular watering which is incompatible with the water restrictions of many local villages. Without watering, the success rate of newly planted material would be negatively affected.   

If you have a tree or shrub that appears to have died, we suggest you do not dig it up or cut it down.  We don’t know exactly how the drought is affecting woody plants.  Some may have gone dormant early as a way of coping with the stress.  We suggest you wait until next spring before removing any trees or shrubs; they may come back.

We look forward to seeing you next Spring at our annual Native Plant, Tree and Shrub Sale on May 4^th  & 5^th.