Preserve designated as prized natural area

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The Fields of the Hidden Orchid Condominium Association’s adjacent 93-acre Dokum Mskoda Nature Preserve as the newest member of the state’s collection of most prized natural areas.

Updated: March 28, 2012 1:15AM

A rare vintage prairie that has probably never been plowed totaling almost 100 acres near Waukegan and Gurnee has been saved thanks to local and state conservation groups and a condominium association.

The 93-acre piece of land can now be designated as one of the more prized natural areas by the Illinois Nature Preserve Commission after the Liberty Prairie Conservancy of Grayslake helped negotiate the purchase of an 8-acre partial that was still owned by Lake Forest Builders Inc. The commission balked at designating the land because that small parcel could have required a road through the pristine prairie at some point.

“Of all the Lake County properties identified as high quality in the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory of 1978, this was the largest one that was still unprotected,” says Steve Barg, executive director of Liberty Prairie Conservancy. “We were impressed to find this association committed to the idea of preserving it. That tradition of caring for open space remains wonderfully strong in Lake County residents,” he said.

The 97-member condominium association of the Fields of Cambridge subdivision was instrumental and a catalyst for the preservation. “They found out about it and how rare it was and they wanted to preserve it,” said Barg, noting it is a wet sedge meadow.

“They are so committed to this it is heartening,” he said. “There were very few places (in Illinois) that were exempt from the plow or heavily grazed,” he continued, “Once we learned how to drain the land they became accessible to the plow.”

The soil was prized because it was so fertile. There are efforts to save even more adjacent land, up to 300 acres, in the future. “Some of these (deals) take decades to complete,” he said, but this one took 15 months. They have already raised $40,000 to help preserve it and knock out invasives before they gain a foothold on the prairie.

The Liberty Prairie Conservancy and Illinois Nature Preserves Commission are spearheading the site’s ecological management and monitoring. Financial support for stewardship comes from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chicago Wilderness, Northeastern Illinois Wetlands Conservation Account and Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation.

The nature preserve’s name, Dokum Mskoda, was proposed by the seven tribal councils of the Potawatomi and means “quiet prairie.” The Potawatomis were the last of a succession of indigenous peoples to live in the Chicago region, Barg said.

The Liberty Prairie Conservancy is a nonprofit organization that helps to preserve and steward natural areas, farmland and other open space throughout Lake County. Established in 1995, the member-supported group works on public, private and nonprofit lands.

The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation was created to improve energy efficiency, advance the development of renewable energy resources, and protect wildlife habitat and natural areas for the people of Illinois. To date it has awarded 121 grants to help acquire and protect over 20,000 acres of natural habitat in locations throughout the state.

The move brings the amount of preserved open space in Lake County to 51,277 acres or 17 percent of the county’s total acreage. In 2009, the Liberty Prairie Conservancy led a county wide coalition of 17 organizations, including the Lake County Forest Preserve and Illinois Nature Preserve Commission, in an effort to determine a target goal for the amount of open space to ultimately protect in Lake County. Twenty percent was the goal.