Prairie Restoration Beginning
Fermilab's prairie project got underway recently with the planting of seeds donated by the Morton Arboretum for a demonstration plot to be started along Road D opposite the Receiving Area. The 40' x 40' plot will display at close hand the species of plants and the layout that comprise a genuine prairie landscape. The same species, and others, will also be planted in a row-style nursery plot on Eola Road. Seeds from the nursery and from the demonstration plot will be collected in the Fall and saved for sowing in the 650 acres inside the Main Ring as the ground is prepared there for the permanent prairie site.
The prairie project, as announced in the February 14, 1974 issue of The Village Crier, is directed by an Advisory Committee of prairie experts, headed by Dr. Robert Betz of Northeastern Illinois University, Ray Schulenberg of the Morton Arboretum, Ray Taggart of Illinois Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and David Blenz of the Cook County Forest Preserves. The Advisory Committee and the Fermilab administration have laid out a long-range plan and schedule for development of the Main Ring prairie. The plan will begin with the plowing and preparing of a 10-acre plot of land inside the Main Ring in the Fall of 1974. Burning of the existing vegetation in the Main Ring will not be done this year. The 10 acres will be planted as soon as possible and then another portion will be prepared and planted. The entire project will require ten years to complete. It will be the largest prairie restoration in the world and is expected to become a valuable botanical study ground.
Working with the Advisory Committee is the Prairie Committee, interested Lab employees appointed by the Director. Members of the Prairie Committee are: Anne Burwell, Director's Office (Program Planning Office), Dave Cosgrove, Accelerator Division; Tony Donaldson, Accelerator Division; Joan Harris, the wife of Fred Harris, Experiment #155; Margaret Pearson, Public Information; David Sauer, (ex officio) Site Management; Tom Saunders, Village Stock Room. Donaldson serves as chairman of the Prairie Committee. A number of other active volunteers assisted with the seed planting.
The Prairie Committee is sending out an urgent appeal for help from other interested people in a project that has just developed. A remnant of prairie is being destroyed at Calumet City, Illinois, about 50 miles southeast of the Laboratory. Before the ground is bulldozed for a development project there, permission has been given to move many of the rare prairie plants to the Fermilab nursery site. This is work that needs many hands -- some to go to Calumet City on the morning of Saturday May 25, others to plant at the Laboratory in the afternoon of the same day. Volunteers, at least 50 working persons able to distinguish and identify plants and to do the hand digging, are needed.
Volunteers will be needed continuously in the prairie project. The seeds just planted will be transplanted in late June. A great deal of hand weeding will follow. The Prairie Committee is now studying a structure for scheduling volunteer work on prairie projects in the summer of '74. If you cannot help on May 25 but could help another time, volunteer now. A general meeting soliciting volunteers from the surrounding community will be held as soon as the committee has firmed the organization plans. The Fermilab prairie project is an interesting, rewarding project - a link between the untouched landscape of the past and concern for the world of the future.
