* Restoring Dunes to Loyola Park

Pratt Avenue Dunes in Spring

Republished from Rogers Park dot Com
by Ann W.

You may have wondered what is going on in the fenced off part of Loyola Park beach. The short answer is the Chicago Park District, and I as the volunteer steward, are letting the beach do what it would naturally, form dunes. We are doing it because it is the current home of some rare plants and potential habitat for rare birds. A fuller explanation as to how this came about follows.

The Loyola beach is the natural shoreline. What I mean by that is that there is no landfill. There are obvious alterations such as the pier and other groins (structures that jut out into the Lake perpendicular to the shoreline) but the beach itself has pretty much been there for 10,000 years. The sand wasn't necessarily flat, but formed low dunes. These are unlike the tall ones such as one finds at the Indiana Dunes or in Michigan, and more like the ones that exist at Illinois Beach State Park. Left to its own devices, the beach will return to that state. For those of you who were in the neighborhood in the '80s, the Chicago Park District had no money and did not mechanically condition the beach. Dunes of three feet or so were formed then in just a few years. You can see that process also occurring a little further north near the Heartland food stand.

The area of Loyola Park that is currently fenced has always, in my experience, had vegetation growing on it. In 2000 some of that vegetation was identified as rare in Illinois, and I started to monitor it. (“monitor” means I count the number of plants and report on the health of the plant community.) This is part of a program called Plants of Concern run by the Chicago Botanical Garden to engage citizen scientists in the overwhelming task of documenting the condition of rare plants in the Chicago area and report on their findings.

Unfortunately, the plants were pretty well threatened by the regular efforts to keep the beach flat and clean for beach-goers. I called several times to remind the Chicago Park District that they were not supposed to drive through the area with garbage trucks nor run the mechanical beach cleaner through the area. Finally, the CPD representative asked what I thought could be done and I shared with her my vision of the area. We agreed that a first step would be to put up a fence to limit vehicle traffic.

Left to its own devices the area will form a dune and swail (the low area between dune ridges) system, host to many rare plants. In turn the plants will become habitat to migratory birds, hopefully some of them rare as well. The area is not off limits. People can wander through and appreciate a shoreline that will in time be much as it was for most of the last 10,000 years.

I had been up to the Lighthouse in Evanston. Behind the Lighthouse is a restored dune area with a boardwalk and interpretive signs explaining the development of dunes and the role they play in protecting the shoreline. I thought that it would be wonderful to have something like that in the City. It is so unusual to find wild places in any city. The CPD was just developing their natural areas program. They had a few locales along the shore that were in similar if not more advanced stages of providing habitat, Montrose Beach, South Shore, Rainbow Beach. Loyola Beach fit in nicely to create a necklace, as it were, of natural areas along the shoreline.

At Loyola Park we have an area that is not well used. As you may know, there are a lot of burrs in the vegetation so it is not a good place to go with the dog nor to sun bathe. It is too dangerous to swim at that part of the beach.

I was told by the CPD that a boardwalk would be too expensive and difficult to maintain. While talking we realized that we didn't need a boardwalk; since the pier is right next to the area in question, signage could be along the pier. Through this process of thinking and talking, I became the de facto steward.

Just by leaving the area alone more species of rare plants have appeared, and I monitor them as well. The Park District removed some invasive non-native plants. I and some other volunteers regularly weed non-native species as well as remove trash.

The CPD successfully applied for a grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to speed the return of native plants. Both the Alliance for the Great Lakes and the Shedd Aquarium have expressed interest in this project. looking to participate in different ways to involve the community, providing educational opportunities in local schools and coordinating different funding sources. It seems as if there is a lot of interest in this kind of a project.