Prairie Works is the source for ecological and landscape services in Northwest Illinois. Prairie Works can assist on projects large and small ranging from prairie and woodland restoration, invasive species control, controlled burning, bio-engineered erosion control and landscaping through the use of native plants. Prairie Works offers an environmentally friendly and dynamic solution to traditional land use practices and strives to connect people to the natural history of the area.

Cory's Blog: A cyber bulletin containing information, statements, news, reports, inside dope, observations and ramblings. Please browse the archives at your leisure.

Archive for the 'news' Category

Election Results

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on November 13, 2008
in Blog, environmentalism and news
. 0 Comments

Finally, the results from last week’s election are in and the news is very good for environmentalists. Nation wide, voters approved a record 8.4 billion dollars for conservation funding. There were 124 measures up for vote involving conservation and 88 of these passed. This totalled $8,400,116,140 dollars. Most impressive was the Minnesota sales tax increase that will generate 5.5 billion dollars for conservation over the next 25 years in that state. Florida also voted very favorably to allow land under conservation easement to now be tax free. The 2008 tally beat previous records from 2006 when 6.7 billion was passed and 1998 when 5.8 billion was approved.

Locally, JoDaviess County passed two referendums making it less attractive for CAFO’s (Contained Animal Feeding Operations) to move into the county.

In these tough economic times it is refreshing to see that conservation continues to trend towards priority. Congratulations everybody!

Above poster by ISO50

Wildflower Photoscans

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on August 22, 2008
in Blog, flora, galena, ill and news
. 0 Comments

Rosa carolina from UMWGalena resident, Richard Pearce, has just launched a new website that catalogues high-resolution photoscans of wild plants from the region. Not to be confused with photographs, these images are scanned in the field or in the studio using a normal office ’scanner’, a laptop, a light source and a power pack. Richard can capture images of wild plants with amazing clarity and resolution with this setup. High end cameras are grabbing 8-20 mega pixels and lack the up close detail. With a scanner he is achieving 50-100 mega pixels with incredible details up close. This allows you to see plant details not able to be seen with the naked eye. This artform was the subject of an exhibit at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 2006 featuring Richard’s mural sized images.

Richard accidentally stumbled upon the process in 2001. He said of the discovery, ” What I saw that night with the office scanner clearly went beyond macro-photography and into the realm of microscopy.” Since then he has successfully scanned over 200 species and a few insects within the Tri-State region, including some threatened and endangered plants. Currently the website contains 69 species with more images added every week.

Richard in action

Along with the incredible photoscans of individual plants on the new website. Each species has a description based on personal research, a plant distribution map, a satellite image of the general location where the plant was scanned and its exact GPS coordinates. The site will be constantly evolving as time goes on and Richard does not expect to become bored with this hobby as the plant diversity in the area and advances in scanner technology could keep him busy for a lifetime.

The new website is called the Upper Mississippi Wildflower Series. Richard welcomes critical feedback from web viewers.

http://www.arrasimages.com/UMW.html View the website here

 

 

Mega Dairy in JoDaviess Co?

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on July 10, 2008
in Blog, law and news
. 0 Comments

www.stopthemegadairy.orgOver the last six months there has been enormous opposition locally over the construction of a corporate dairy farm that is to be constructed near Warren, IL. The negative effects that this CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation) would bring to the environment in this county is staggering as is the lowered quality of life to it’s neighbors and the loss of a picturesque landscape that the area is known for.

This past winter a local group opposing this CAFO was formed and they need support quickly. H.O.M.E.S, Helping Others Maintain Environmental Standards, is accepting donations to pay for legal fees to fight this issue. In this David vs Goliath battle any funds will be beneficial. Thank you.

http://www.stopthemegadairy.org/how_to_help_donate_money.html Donate Money Here

http://www.stopthemegadairy.org/ HOMES website

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-big-farm-13-jun13,0,7136487.story Chicago Tribune article

http://www.thegalenaterritory.com/news_detail.cfm?id=186 The Territory Times article

2008 Green Fair

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on February 14, 2008
in Blog, environmentalism, events, galena, ill and news
. 1 Comment

The Three R’sIt has been officially announced that the University of Illinois Extension, with a coalition of other local organizations (including Prairie Works), will be hosting the first annual Green Fair. Green Fair 2008: Ideas and Products for Your Home and Business will be held this June in Elizabeth, IL. Below is the official press release:

Set aside Friday, June 27, and Saturday, June 28 for the first area Green Fair! The theme for this years event is Ideas and Products for Your Home and Business. The fair will be a chance to meet retailers of green products, renewable energy resources, recycled and sustainably produced items for your business, office and home. There will be children’s activities, informative presentations and local food vendors.
The fair will be held at Highland Community College West (previously River Ridge High School). Look for more details in future newspaper articles, newsletters and flyer’s.
The Green Fair planning committee member organizations are: Baranski Hammer Moretta & Sheehy Architecture, Blackhawk Hills RC&D, Carroll County Economic Development Corp., Conservation Guardians of Northwest Illinois, Galena Territory Association, JoDaviess Conservation Foundation, Jo-Carroll Energy, Jo-Carroll Solid Waste Agency, JoDaviess County Office of Economic Development, Prairie Works Inc., The Prairie Enthusiasts and The University of Illinois Extension. 

If you have questions about the Green Fair, please contact Maggie Friedenbach, Recycling and Conservation Projects Coordinator, at University of Illinois Extension, 815.244.9444. You can also contact me at cory@prairieworksinc.com 

Hope to see you there!

Historic Aerial Photography

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on January 28, 2008
in Blog, history, land management, news and remnant ecosystems
. 1 Comment

Example: Guilford & Ford Roads, JoDaiviess Co Before the execution of any ecological restoration project the first step is to learn about the history of the land. It’s similar to how someone restoring a historic building will first seek out old photographs. The early surveyors’ notes from the 1800s offer a great overview, but they are most useful for large tracts of land and often lack the detail needed for smaller projects. The first aerial photographs of an area are the next most valuable tool. The Illinois Historical Aerial Photography Project (ILHAP) began around a decade ago and Northwest Illinois is its newest addition.

Photographs of all counties in Illinois were taken between 1937 and 1947, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. These photos were used mainly for tax purposes and for post-depression land analysis. Today, the photos are used by the goverment, historians, ecologists, and many others for several purposes including: determining past land uses, restoration of natural areas, assessing historical changes in stream dynamics, declaring brownfields and many other applications. Aerial photography is widely used today and is a very important tool for land managers.

Due to the chemical makeup of the old film negatives they are now detiorating at an alarming rate and it is necessary to transfer the images into a digital format, or digitize, to save the first aerial photos. This motivated the project to be done sooner rather than later. In total around 250,000 individual negatives are archived in Springfield. At the time of writing, 58 of Illinois’ 102 counties have been digitized. The Chicago metro area was first to be done in 2003 as the declaration of wetlands is an important issue in that area.

Although the images are rather rough by today’s standards, the overall experience of viewing these photos is fascinating. Viewing them is not something to do if you’re in a hurry - it is easy to consume many hours doing so. Looking back in time and realizing the transformation that has occurred since the 1940s can be mind boggling and the comparison to recent aerial images is astounding.

Our landscape has changed a lot since small farms, country schoolhouses and railroads dotted the landscape. The comment heard most often from people is how “open” the landscape was. This solidifies what ecologists have known - the woodlands in the Driftless Area were not as dense as they are today. The Midwest has changed from open Oak-Hickory savannas and woodlands to the dense Maple-Softwood forests that we find today. Fire shadows, a remnant from pre-settlement times, were much more evident in 1940 then they are today. Also, we see natural meandering courses of small streams and not the channelized irrigation canals that have become so familiar. Looking at our cities and villages is also very interesting.

Consider the following by Dr. Dov Gavish of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from the book Historical Aerial Photography Collection of Israel: “Through the aerial photograph, the landscape revealed to the camera lens is translated into visual language. The aerial photograph captures scenes and events that have vanished with time, and the testimony it embodies is unassailable. The scene that appears in a single aerial photo is a link in the chain of the landscape’s ever-changing and ever evolving history; there is a story that preceded it, and another one that followed it.”

The photographs can be viewed here: http://www.isgs.uiuc.edu/nsdihome/webdocs/ilhap/ and you must download the Mr. Sid software http://www.lizardtech.com/download/  in order to view the .sid files. The Mr. Sid compression software is 4.39kb.

When viewing the images you will notice a series of numbers on the images. Those numbers are the exposure numbers and were in the corner of each frame. When the images were fused together they look out of place and are sometimes in the way of the desired imagery. You also will notice the wing of the plane or what could be part of the camera equipment at some points - all part of the character of these historic images.

Iowa and Wisconsin have there own forms of historic aerials as well:

http://ortho.gis.iastate.edu/PhotosMetadata.htm Iowa

http://www.geography.wisc.edu/maplib/aerial.html  Wisconsin

Galena in the New York Times

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on January 3, 2008
in Blog, galena, ill, news and travel
. 0 Comments

“The Nations Official Recorder of Modern Events”Recently, the New York Times featured Galena, IL in its travel section. It was a rather lengthy article and was written from an interesting perspective, a national one. Several people that I know were quoted and I learned about the local real estate climate, among other things.

What does this have to do with nature? Absolutely nothing. But it is great to have the country’s largest and most respected news source feature our town. Read the article here.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/travel/escapes/07havens.html 

Conservation Easements

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on December 4, 2007
in Blog, law and news
. 0 Comments

Looking South from the Harmets’ Hill PrairieRecently, a client of mine, the Harmets, entered their land into a conservation easement to much fanfare. Thier property contains several different ecosystems including a hill prairie remnant, a prairie that survived 100 plus years of grazing until the Harmets purchased the property and began management. 

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust that limits the uses of the land in order to protect its conservation values into perpetuity, while still retaining full ownership rights and the ability to pass land on to heirs or other owners. Property taxes are usually greatly reduced or totally eleminated as well as federal income taxes for the first fifteen years, in order to encourage this type of land protection. After the conservation easement is signed it is recorded into the County of Deeds and applies to all future owners of the property. Conservation easements are customized for each parcel of land and can accomodate many unique situations. The property owners work with a land trust, who provides the legal service and all legwork. The land trust can be compensated by the land owner through a voluntary donation.

In 2006 the popularity of conservation easements accelerated due to a pension reform bill passed by Congress. The maximum deduction a donor is allowed was raised from 30% to 50% of their adjusted gross income in any year. Farmers and ranchers can deduct 100% under the new bill. Also, the carry forward period to take the deductions was extended from 5 years to 15 years. These are not to be changed for 26 years.

Although the financial benefits serve as great incentives, protecting ecosystems, scenic views, historic farms and ensuring that your family will be able to continue ownership is the real driving force. Currently there are over 1,600 not for profit land trusts in America including two in JoDaviess County.

http://www.galenagazette.com/main.asp?SectionID=142&SubsectionID=344&ArticleID=11102&TM=50068.05 The Galena Gazette’s article on Dick and Joan Harmet

http://journalstandard.com/articles/2007/11/26/news/news01.txt The Freeport Journal Standard’s article on the Harmets

http://www.lta.org/ The Land Trust Alliance

http://www.naturalland.org/ The Natural Land Institute

http://www.jdcf.org/conservation_options.htm The JoDaviess Conservation Foundation

Help the Environment - Reduce Junk Mail

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on October 19, 2007
in Blog, environmentalism and news
. 0 Comments

There is a new online service created to reduce the amount of catalogs that are sent to American mailboxes. The Ecology Center, National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council have collaborated on the new online consumer service called Catalog Choice. It gives people who shop via catalogs the choice of which catalogs they receive in the mail (and which ones they wish to stop). During the first week of launching the new site, 25,000 people had signed up.

Paper usage has had a huge impact on the environment. Each year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. This uses 53 million trees (between 300,000 and 500,00 acres of land cleared or thinned) which creates 7.2 billions pounds of paper. Processing and transporting this paper results in 5.2 billions pounds of carbon dioxide emissions which equals the emissions of 2 million cars. And it also requires 53 billion gallons of fresh water.

If this new service can lower catalog printing by just 20%, that would be 10 million trees and 100,000 acres of land saved, per year. And, a billion pounds of greenhouse gases reduced.

In its press release, Laura Hickey, senior director for Global Warming Education said  “Every day, millions of unwanted catalogs clog consumers’ mailboxes and are immediately tossed in the trash. More than just an annoyance, they are overflowing municipal waste systems, devouring precious natural resources, and contributing to pollution and global warming.” Hickey notes that unlike other do-not-mail services, Catalog Choice is free. 

Sounds like a great idea and I am sure your mail carrier would appreciate you signing up too.

www.catalogchoice.org Sign up for the new service here

www.papercalculator.org find your impact on paper usage

August Rainfall Totals

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on September 4, 2007
in Blog, galena, ill, news and weather
. 0 Comments

An August StormThe month of August has come to an end and the region can report rainfall totals of historic proportions. A persistent rain pattern formed early in the month and it did not end until it had caused record breaking amounts in many areas. The city of DeKalb, IL reported 14.27 inches of rain in August and 26.47 inches through meteorologic summer (June-Aug), both records. This reflects what occurred over much of the region. Portions of southwest Wisconsin and southeast Minnesota were declared federal disaster areas with as much as 17 inches falling in several days. The Chicago Metro area received close to 16 inches of rain including a storm outbreak on the 23rd that produced the most violent storm in recent memory. There were many economic and heartfelt losses throughout the area.

Midwest Rainfall Totals from August 18-25The most staggering of statisticts came out of Houston County in southeast Minnesota. During a 24 hour period on the 18th and 19th the county received 15.1 inches of rain, shattering the old mark of 10.84 set in 1972. This 24 hour total was two inches less than the all-time record for a single month, set in July of 1987.

The Galena area missed many of the heaviest rains. In total it received 6.27 inches of rain which fell on 23 of the 31 days of the month, including runs in which rain fell on 9 (17th-25th) and 8 consecutive days (2nd-9th). The normal total for August in the area is around 4.25 inches.

August Rainfall totals from the region (inches):

DeKalb, IL - 14.27;   Freeport, IL - 11.88;   Rockford, IL - 13.82;   Vernon Hills, IL - 15.14;   Dubuque, IA - 6.06;   Iowa City, IA - 8.02;   Waterloo, IA - 10.32;   Belmont, WI - 19.89;   LaCrosse, WI - 20.32;   Madison, WI - 15.18;   Platteville, WI - 11.94;   Prairie DuChien, WI - 8.04

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwest_flooding_of_2007

Corporations Turning to Prairies

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on August 17, 2007
in Blog, environmentalism, native species and news
. 0 Comments

The Wisconsin State Journal published an article on August 9, about the trend of converting high maintenance turf grass areas into prairies on large corporate campuses. Some of the Madison, WI area’s largest corporations doing just that include American Family Insurance, Alliant Energy and SACO Foods. The article cited the usual benefits, such as bio-diversity and habitat, but also noted that the appeal most often comes down to saving money and the overall bottom line.

Steve Cohan of Full Compass, headquartered in Middleton, WI said the company recouped its initial investment in the first three years due to reduction of turf maintenence. The company spent 30 percent more on the initial prairie installation when compared to turf grass costs but they liked the long-term benefit. Cohan said, “There is something really interesting about having this environment right outside your window. You can look literally four feet out your window and see a hawk in a tree. That’s something you don’t get with a traditional office building with traditional shrubs and a parking lot.”

The Chicago area has been naturalizing its corporate campuses for over a decade now. Some of the most notable projects include: Tellabs, Underwriters Laboratories, Nicor Gas, Prairie Stone Business Park, BP Amoco, WW Grainger and Abbott Labs. Openlands, a conservation organization founded in 1963, established The Corporatelands Program in 2003 to assist businesses with converting from traditional high maintenance landscapes to low maintenence landscapes that utilize prairies and native plants. They host workshops for facility managers to attend and explain the how-tos.

As with many new ideas and products, it is the goverment and corporations that lead the way into making concepts mainstream. Hopefully, we will see this trend continue to trickle down to the private sector.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=204983 Wisconsin State Journal Article 

http://www.openlands.org/corporatelands.asp Corporatelands Program

Illinois Passes Two Important Bills

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on August 14, 2007
in Blog, law, news and organic
. 0 Comments

Yesterday, August 14th Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, signed two important bills into legislation. Both bills promote conservation in Illinois. 

House Bill 1300 creates the Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force. The Task Force will be managed by the Department of Agriculture and will be responsible for developing plans to expand the accessibility of Illinois-grown and organic foods. Specifically, the task force will identify farmland preservation opportunities and train and develop programs for conventional farmers. In addition, it will provide financial and technical support for those entering the industry and help expand development of fresh food markets in under-served communities. The state hopes this will allow for fresh produce to be made available to the inner-city and revitalize weakened rural economies. House Bill 1300 was sponsored by Sate Representative Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) and State Senator Jacqueline Collins (D-Chicago). HB 1300 goes into effect immediately.

House Bill 1780 extends the sunset date for the popular Conservation 2000 (C2000) program from 2009 to 2021. It was also renamed Partners for Conservation. Since 1996 the ‘C2000′ program has helped restore 90,000 acres of natural areas, reduced soil erosion by implementing conservation tillage programs and educated one million citizens on the importance of the environment. It has been one of the most succussful programs in the state of Illinois during the past quarter century. It was sponsored by State Representative Dan Reitz (D-Sparta) and State Senator Linda Holmes (D-Plainfield). HB 1780 will go into effect January 1, 2008.

There is no Illinois citizen participating in conservation who has not been involved with a C2000 Grant in some way and the promotion of a strong organic food market in Illinois is long overdue. These two bills make waiting for a state budget to pass just a bit more bearable.

2008 Prairie Conference

Published
by
Cory Ritterbusch
on August 9, 2007
in Blog, events, news, prairie and remnant ecosystems
. 0 Comments

It has been announced that the 21st North American Prairie Conference will be held in Winona, MN on August 4-8, 2008. The NAPC is held every other year and its locations have varied from Ontario, Canada to Texas but is usually held somewhere in the Midwest. Next year will be the first time that it will be held in the Driftless Area. The NAPC is a great resource for everyone from the hobbyist to the professional. There are a wide variety of topics to learn about and some great field trips to attend.

The first NAPC was originally called The Symposium on Prairies and Prairie Restoration and was held on September 14 and 15, 1968 at Knox College in Galesburg, IL, organized by prairie pioneer Peter Schramm. This symposium morphed into the Midwest Prairie Conference and became the North American Prairie Conference in 1978. A lot has changed since its humble begginings in 1968.

I attended the 2004 NAPC in Madison, WI and found it very rewarding. Mark your calenders to head to Winona State University next August.