Monitoring of green infrastructure at The Grove in Bloomington, Illinois

Abstract

The City of Bloomington, Illinois, restored Kickapoo Creek to a more natural state by incorporating green infrastructure—specifically flood-plain reconnection, riparian wetlands, meanders, and rock riffles—at a 90-acre park within The Grove residential development. A team of State and Federal agencies and contractors are collecting data to monitor the effectiveness of this stream restoration in improving water quality and stream habitat. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is collecting and analyzing water resources data; Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is collecting fish population data; Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) is collecting macroinvertebrates and riparian habitat data; and Prairie Engineers of Illinois, P.C., is collecting vegetation data. The data collection includes conditions upstream, within, and downstream of the development and restoration. The 480-acre development was designed by the Farnsworth Group to reduce peak stormwater flows by capturing runoff in the reconnected flood plains with shallow wetland basins. Also, an undersized park bridge was built at the downstream end of the park to pass the 20-percent annual exceedance probability flows (historically referred to as the 5-year flood), but detain larger floods. This design also helps limit sediment deposition from sediments transported in the drainage ditches in the upper 9,000 acres of agricultural row crops. Maintaining sediment-transport capacity minimizes sediment deposition in the restored stream segments, which reduces the loss of riparian and wetland-plant communities and instream habitat. Two additional goals of the restoration were to reduce nutrient loads and maintain water quality to support a diverse community of biotic species. Overall, 2 miles of previously managed agricultural-drainage ditches of Kickapoo Creek were restored, and the park landscape maximizes the enhancement of native riparian, wetland, and aquatic species for the park’s trail system. The purpose of this fact sheet is to give an overview and examples of the data being collected.