2015 TWI Bureau Co. Wetland
Constructed the first week of August 2015, the Bureau County wetland project, located at Thacker Farms in Ohio, IL, was satisfactorily completed on time with good weather all week! Co-hosted by ILICA and The Wetlands Initiative (TWI), the total project area was approximately 2 acres requiring over 6,000 cubic yards of earthwork/excavation.
Jill Kostel and Vera Leopold of the Wetlands Initiative coordinated many of the event details, such as tents, tour stop personnel, lunch speakers and volunteer t-shirt design, along with their engineering responsibilities for this project. Tour stops for attendees included grassed waterways, filter strips, a soil pit, cover crops, and the constructed wetland which included tile drainage and water quality monitoring. Outstanding lunch speakers included Doug Grass from Pheasants Forever, Dean Oswald and Caroline Wade from Illinois Council on Best Management Practices, Jean Payne from Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association and Dick Breckenridge with Illinois EPA.
Our sincere thanks goes out to our generous associates for their donations of equipment and materials, including Advanced Drainage Systems Inc., Agri Drain Corporation, Altorfer Inc., Birkeys, Bradford Supply, HD Supply Waterworks, Martin Equipment, Roland Machinery Company, Springfield Plastics Inc., and to the Thacker family for their outstanding hospitality. A big thank you to our show committee chairs, David Kennedy, Joe Streitmatter and Brian Brooks, who invested a large amount of time to planning and executing this project, often times requiring countless pre and post event hours. Thank you, as well, to the other ILICA volunteers who showed up during the 4 day project including Tom Beyers, Steve & Stuart Anderson, Lee Bunting, Grant & Ron Curtis, Bill Dean, Joe Krupps, Wes Litwiller, and some of their staff. However without Jill Kostel, TWI, working for two years to secure grants and designing and coordinating this project, it would have never come to fruition. She worked tirelessly alongside the ILICA volunteers to accomplish this successful project and will continue to monitor the site for the impact this wetland will have on nutrient reduction.
