A rare stretch of virgin prairie has received yet another reprieve from the bulldozer, with the Federal Aviation Administration telling the Tribune that Chicago Rockford International Airport has agreed to delay construction until June 1.
The airport’s previous agreement to refrain from construction ended Tuesday.
The airport wants to build a road through the Bell Bowl Prairie, one of the last remaining places in the state where prairie exists much as it did 8,000 years ago. Conservationists are fighting the road in the name of rare plants and animals found on the 5-acre stretch of land, including the federally endangered rusty patched bumblebee.
“We’re not trying to stop the airport expansion,” said Kerry Leigh, executive director of the Natural Land Institute, a conservation group based in Rockford. “We’re trying to get them to redesign the road and avoid the prairie.”
Environmentalists, she said, are calling on the airport to turn what remains of the prairie into a nature preserve.
The airport declined to comment, but the FAA said via email that airport officials have agreed to a new time frame for any possible construction.
“The Airport Authority has made a commitment that construction work will not begin before June 1, 2022,” an FAA spokesman wrote.
Leigh showed the Tribune a Feb. 16 letter from the FAA to the airport, thanking airport officials for confirming they did not immediately intend to proceed with construction in the prairie area, and outlining an environmental review process involving the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“The thing they’re trying to determine at the moment is whether there are (rusty patched bumblebee) queens hibernating in the prairie,” Leigh said.
Rusty patched bumblebee queens hibernate underground in winter and emerge to lay eggs in spring.
Endangered species laws say a habitat needs to be protected when a rare animal is on the property, but once the animal leaves, the habitat can be disturbed.
The prairie, which is owned by the airport, has experienced a series of reprieves since August, when environmentalists, alerted that an area near Bell Bowl was being bulldozed, discovered the airport’s 280-acre expansion project.
Not long after that, on Aug. 8, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources identified the rusty patched bumblebee in the Bell Bowl area.
Informed of the presence of the bee, the airport stopped construction on the project and the FAA began discussions with the Fish and Wildlife Service regarding the bumblebee and other species, according to the FAA.
The airport’s $50 million expansion project includes a new cargo center and cargo ramps for more planes, as well as new roads and parking areas.
Bell Bowl was used as a U.S. Army training camp during World Wars I and II, which protected its ancient ecosystem from grazing and plowing. The land is considered a remnant prairie, a rare throwback to the days before European settlement when buffalo roamed freely.
Less than one-hundredth of 1% of the original ancient prairie has survived in Illinois, according to a white paper by John White, a former chief ecologist for The Nature Conservancy.
“A high quality, old-growth prairie is the Midwest equivalent of a cathedral redwood grove — only far, far rarer,” White wrote.
Bell Bowl is home to at least 164 species of plants, many of which are rare, and birders have found rare nesting birds such as the grasshopper sparrow.
The prairie’s star species, the rusty patched bumblebee, has declined by 87% in the past 20 years and is likely present in 0.1% of its historical range, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The fight to preserve Bell Bowl dates back to the 1960s, when it was championed by George Fell, founder of the natural areas movement and conservation organizations like The Nature Conservancy.
Over the years, the prairie has been reduced to 5 acres from 20 acres, but it remains a rallying point for Illinois environmentalists.
In October, the Illinois Environmental Council told the Tribune that environmental groups were urging citizens to send letters and make phone calls asking politicians to save the prairie.
Leigh, for her part, hopes this battle for the Bell Bowl Prairie will be the last of its kind.
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