Daily Southtown

Forest Preserves burning and buying with new cash

Influx of taxpayer-approved dollars funding restoratio­n, other efforts

Tucked among the factories and plants dotting south suburban Ford Heights is Sauk Trail Woods, a forest preserve where Cook County taxpayers are bankrollin­g an effort to beat back a pernicious invader.

On a crisp, sunny Wednesday in late November, Troy Showerman, resource project manager for the Cook County Forest Preserve District, points to one of the few short trees that still is holding its leaves.

It’s buckthorn, one of the invasive woody species, or “woodies,” choking out growth of Sauk Trail’s native trees, grasses and wildflower­s.

Buckthorn (which grows here in the “common” and “glossy” varieties) has no natural predators. It grows before other plants in the spring and its leaves hang on late into the fall, cutting off sunlight and energy that native plants and trees like oak and maple need to grow.

“It just eliminates the whole

native understory,” Showerman said.

But thanks in part to Cook County voters, the district is embarking on an ambitious restoratio­n program that is unparallel­ed in the Midwest, Showerman said, including efforts to fight back on invasives and restore native plants to woods and grasslands scattered mostly across the suburbs.

A year ago, voters overwhelmi­ngly approved a referendum to raise their own property taxes, yielding more than $40 million in additional funding each year to

forest preserve coffers.

Long-maligned for damaging headlines about mismanagem­ent, neglect, and politicall­y motivated hiring, the district’s turnaround agenda in recent years convinced even some of its harshest critics it was deserving of more money. Even the tax-averse Civic Federation supported the hike, arguing the district had right-sized its workforce, cut expenditur­es and improved planning.

The district was also upfront about what they wanted to use the additional $40 million for: about a quarter would go to ailing district

pensions. A little over $6 million would be spent on deferred capital needs of the Brookfield Zoo and Chicago Botanic Garden, which stand on forest preserve land. The rest would be spent on buying more land, restoratio­n efforts, facility maintenanc­e, and expanding existing programmin­g.

Those restoratio­n efforts can be costly: Showerman says a group of four contractor­s can clear a single acre of woodies in two days. Other invasives can be taken out with more fast and affordable prescribed burns: setting grasslands aflame annually suppresses invasives, allowing native grasses to flourish, the district says. The scorched earth also heats up