Scores of herons and egrets nest on this 41-acre site on the east side of Grass Lake Road near Antioch. The Lake County Forest Preserve District plans to buy the property and protect its sensitive ecological features as a conservation site.
Courtesy of Fogel family
The largest heron and egret rookery in Lake County will become a conservation preserve under forest preserve control.
Lake County Forest Preserve District commissioners on Wednesday agreed to buy about 41 acres on the east side of Grass Lake Road near Antioch for $361,000. The site will not be developed because of nesting birds and other sensitive ecological features.
“We don’t intend to provide public access,” said Ty Kovach, executive director. “It’s very unique.”
Lake County forest preserves plan on acquiring the 41-acre Fogel property east of Grass Lake Road near Antioch to protect the ecological features including a heron and egret rookery.
Courtesy of Lake County Forest Preserves
The acreage known as the Fogel property is bordered by Antioch Township’s Vern Thelen Park on the east and Grass Lake elementary school to the south. It officially will be known as Lotus Country Conservation Preserve, a reference to a time when extensive lotus beds drew visitors to the Chain O’ Lakes area.
It’s considered a conservation preserve in which the district will own and manage the site to ensure rare ecological attributes, including wetlands and woodlands, remain protected and untouched.
“The extensive rookery on the property makes it especially worthy of protection and preservation,” according to a staff description of the site. Developing the site for public access would damage the delicate ecosystem of the habitat and have a negative impact on the rookery, officials say.
“It’s a very young rookery but this is going to be around for a long time,” Kovach said. “We want to guarantee that happens for as long as they want to be there.”
Typically, the forest preserve district acquires stand-alone properties of at least 100 acres but this is an exception, officials say. The purchase will be funded from proceeds of a $17.5 million bond issue in April specifically for land acquisitions.
“We had been offered the property in the past but we didn’t have any land acquisition funds,” said Ken Jones, director of land preservation. “This is good timing and luck.”
In the early 1900s, the Chain O’ Lakes area was a resort destination known for extensive lotus beds showing large pale yellow flowers blooming in late July and early August, according to a district news release.
Believed to have originated in the east-central U.S., prehistoric communities utilized lotus seeds and tubers as a food source as they traveled. Tribal nations made their homes in the region eating wild rice, fish, waterfowl, beaver and various aquatic plants, the release said.
The forest board’s planning committee last week approved the name after reviewing a list of suggestions including Native American names. The full board agreed Wednesday but there was some give and take.
Earlier in the meeting, the board approved a resolution acknowledging “Native people” as the original caregivers of the land it now owns and saying the district today strives to build respectful relationships and obtain knowledge from Native American communities.
Board member Linda Pedersen, whose district includes the property, said the lotus reference is important to the area.
“There’s a lot of history here in this name,” she said. “All the residents out there will relate to it.”
A 41-acre site on the east side of Grass Lake Road near Antioch includes the largest heron and egret rookery in Lake County. The Lake County Forest Preserve District plans to buy and protect the property as a conservation site.
Courtesy of Fogel family
Scores of herons and egrets nest on this 41-acre site on the east side of Grass Lake Road near Antioch. The Lake County Forest Preserve District plans to buy the property for $361,000.
Courtesy of Fogel family