Wetland mitigation can be beneficial, but not all projects are equal, environmentalists say

The expansion of O’Hare International Airport is nearing two decades and has cost billions of dollars. It has also required the destruction of dozens of acres of wetlands by the Illinois Tollway.

When wetlands are destroyed, mitigation such as restoring or creating new wetlands elsewhere, generally within the same general area or nearest watershed, is required by local and federal laws.

The Illinois Tollway found the perfect place for wetland mitigation — but not in Cook County where O’Hare is located. Instead, the tollway spent $9 million restoring wetlands in Pine Dunes Forest Preserve in Lake County near the Wisconsin border. The preserve was approved for mitigation because it is in the Des Plaines River basin.

But not all wetland mitigation projects are equal, according to some environmentalists. Besides restoring or creating new wetlands, mitigation also can include purchasing a credit that goes toward supporting a wetland that already exists. That means no new wetlands are created.

“The laws don’t say wetlands can’t be developed. They just say mitigation is required,” said Evan Craig, a Vernon Hills resident and former chairman of the Sierra Club Woods and Wetlands Group in Lake and northeastern Cook counties.

The entity destroying the wetlands “gets to decide what kind of mitigation is done,” he said. “If you only improve land that’s already protected, you’re not gaining very much.”

Lake County Forest Preserves Executive Director Ty Kovach said the district gained much when Pine Dunes was restored, and it helped the tollway complete its work near O’Hare.

The Pine Dunes project provided approximately 60 acres of wetland credits to mitigate the destruction of wetlands associated with construction of the Illinois Route 390 Tollway and the new Interstate 490 Tollway, scheduled to be completed in 2025, according to tollway officials.

Part of the O’Hare modernization plan, the road construction will provide western highway access to the airport.

At Pine Dunes, agricultural drain tiles were removed to re-create former wetlands. Nonnative plants were replaced with nearly 5,000 native trees and shrubs in the four-year project completed in 2018. In addition, the tollway funding paid for the creation of a 40-car parking lot, a new restroom, a 2.6-mile multiuse trail and three scenic overlooks, according to Kovach.

Forest preserve officials say the work at Pine Dunes provided critical habitat for rare birds such as the red-headed woodpecker in the uplands, and frogs and salamanders in the wetlands.

“It’s fabulous, I love that forest preserve,” said Doug Ower, a Zion resident who is chair of the Sierra Club Woods and Wetlands Group in northeastern Illinois. “We’re the lucky recipients of the project, but that’s not really how mitigation should work,” he said.

“It should be wetlands in that area (where they were destroyed), or in that watershed.”

Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter.