Meagan Moller, 11, figured she’d be doing a little planting at Trout Park in Elgin. She had no idea she’d be wading knee-deep in a wetland, burying bulbs in the mud using gloves that stretched to her shoulders.
“Oh, it’s squishy and cold,” Meagan said. “You have to dig through whole bunches of stuff like roots, clumps of dirt, sticks and leaves.”
She was among 400 pupils who spent last month replenishing the wetland with native plants and helping to restore the watershed along the Fox River.
Their work will provide a lush backdrop for people who want to fish or canoe, especially once the City of Elgin makes the west end of the park more accessible to the public as part of its ongoing efforts to spruce up the riverfront.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Department plans to install a fishing pier and canoe launch at the park, which is west of Duncan Avenue, just south of the Northwest Tollway. The bumpy, gravel road that leads to the river from Duncan Avenue will be widened and paved.
There also will be a picnic shelter, a bike path that loops through the park and a 22-space, lighted parking lot. Crews are expected to install a large wooden sign that describes the ecology of the area and how the pupils restored the watershed.
Park renovations will begin this summer and should be done by December. Elgin and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources are each kicking in $200,000, while the Kane County Forest Preserve District is contributing $65,000.
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The watershed restoration was organized by the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, a non-profit group in East Dundee, and funded in part by a $10,000 grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation.
The pupils, 6th graders from Elgin-based School District 46 and Carpentersville-based School District 300, trudged through the mud to clear non-native brush. They pulled tall weeds that left them smelling like onions. And they hacked down intrusive buckthorn and honeysuckle plants that blocked the sun from smaller native plants.
Their work capped a curriculum in environmental science, which included lessons on watershed topography and the types of plants, animals and insects that live in such ecosystems.
On one morning, Meagan and 33 other pupils from Lowrie Elementary School in Elgin arrived to do their part, braving the mosquitoes and warm sun. Standing at the edge of the wetland, several pupils donned thick rubber boots and walked into the water, where they buried bulbs that thrive in marshes.
Tyler Dewis, a 12-year-old from Elgin, described the water as squishy until he got near the roots of the plants where he had to push hard. “You needed a lot of force. It was kinda neat,” he said.
On the other side of the park, another group of pupils yanked non-native garlic-mustard plants. The plants, introduced by European settlers, crowd out native species like trillium and wild ginger. They grow about 3 feet tall, produces purple flowers and its leaves smell like onions when crushed.
As the pupils trampled through the overgrown fields in search of the invading plants, it didn’t take long for the pungent aroma to fill the air.
“If I went through a stink detector, I think I would break the machine,” said Mateo Castillo, 12, of Elgin as he emerged from a clearing with an armload of the plants. Still, he understood the importance of the effort.
“The animals that live in here eat the native plants,” he said. “And when the non-native plants come here, they block the sunlight. When they block the sunlight, it kills the native plant and the animals can’t eat and they starve.”