Cleaning Streams in Cook County, IL: Forest Preserves, Water Pollution, and Interwar Environmentalism in the Chicago Region

In 1916, the Forest Preserve District of Cook County began acquiring land to create a natural retreat for Chicagoans in that booming metropolitan region. Since district officials acquired many properties along county streams, water pollution soon interfered with their mission of creating an urban wilderness for recreational pleasure. To address the problem, in 1931, county leaders appointed the Clean Streams Advisory Committee that collaborated with forest preserve staff members to pressure polluters to clean-up their operations and to persuade enforcement agencies to prosecute ongoing offenders. They also lobbied the Public Works Administration to earmark New Deal funding for sewage treatment in Cook County. Their efforts suggest that early activism against water pollution in American cities emerged not only from efforts to ensure clean drinking water, but also struggles to protect nature. The interwar campaign to clean forest preserve streams anticipated the goals of the federal Clean Water Act (1972) to make all American waterways fishable and swimmable. The movement also preceded the burst of anti-pollution activism that historians have documented in U.S. suburbs after WWII and laid the groundwork for postwar efforts to mitigate water pollution in Cook County.

Predicting Eurasian Watermilfoil and Curly-leaf Pondweed Presence-Absence in Adirondack Lakes Using Geographically Weighted Logistic Regression

Aquatic invasive species, Eurasian Watermilfoil (EWM) and Curly-leaf Pondweed (CLP), have been dispersing across New York, USA and are threatening the ecosystem of Adirondack Park, a state park with a large forest preserve and heavily frequented by tourists. In this study, the prediction of EWM and CLP invasion across Adirondack Park lakes is modeled using logistic regression (LR) and geographically weighted logistic regression (GWLR) with lake, landscape, and climate variable predictors. EWM presence-absence is found to be best predicted by nearby invaded lakes, human presence, and elevation. The presence-absence of CLP models have similar findings, with the addition of game-fish abundance being important. GWLR increases model performance and prediction, with explained variation of EWM and CLP increasing by 23% and 16% and the percent correctly predicted increasing by 2.6% and 0.9%. The study shows that GWLR, a relatively novel methodology, works better than common LR models for predicting invasion of EWM and CLP across Adirondack Park, and corroborates anthropogenic influences on dispersal of aquatic invaders.

Predicting Eurasian Watermilfoil and Curly-leaf Pondweed Presence-Absence in Adirondack Lakes Using Geographically Weighted Logistic Regression

Aquatic invasive species, Eurasian Watermilfoil (EWM) and Curly-leaf Pondweed (CLP), have been dispersing across New York, USA and are threatening the ecosystem of Adirondack Park, a state park with a large forest preserve and heavily frequented by tourists. In this study, the prediction of EWM and CLP invasion across Adirondack Park lakes is modeled using logistic regression (LR) and geographically weighted logistic regression (GWLR) with lake, landscape, and climate variable predictors. EWM presence-absence is found to be best predicted by nearby invaded lakes, human presence, and elevation. The presence-absence of CLP models have similar findings, with the addition of game-fish abundance being important. GWLR increases model performance and prediction, with explained variation of EWM and CLP increasing by 23% and 16% and the percent correctly predicted increasing by 2.6% and 0.9%. The study shows that GWLR, a relatively novel methodology, works better than common LR models for predicting invasion of EWM and CLP across Adirondack Park, and corroborates anthropogenic influences on dispersal of aquatic invaders.

“A Three-Year Vacation”

This chapter recounts the Big Blowdown of 1950 in Adirondack, New York. It introduces Clarence Petty, a New York State Forest Ranger who was asked to go up and look at the damage that had happened in the Adirondack Forest Preserve. The chapter outlines the appeal of foresters to the state legislature to start a salvage logging program in the forest preserve. It then turns to narrate the early life of Clarence, from being a park ranger to pilot, as well as the story of his brother's life Bill Petty, a regional director of the Conservation Department. Clarence became the undisputed authority on the forest preserve. He combined his years of aerial observation with three major surveying assignments that took him to every acre of state-owned land in the Adirondacks. He called his first assignment “a three-year vacation.” The chapter examines the statewide version of the disagreement between the Petty brothers, in which Clarence and other Forever Wild advocates were horrified by salvage logging in the forest preserve, while Bill and other scientific foresters replied that the friends of the Forever Wild clause were silly and sentimental. Ultimately, the chapter reviews the work of Neil Stout and Clarence Petty to make detailed maps and gather as much useful data as possible on the large roadless areas in the forest preserve.

Order Must Be

This chapter addresses the concerns of Harold Hochschild after he learned that Governor Nelson Rockefeller was planning to give responsibility for campgrounds and other public facilities in the forest preserve to the new Office of Parks and Recreation, which was governed by a commission whose chair was Laurance Rockefeller. The chapter argues that the change was a mortal threat, according to Hochschild and Harold Jerry. Hochschild feared that if Laurance's people were allowed to operate public facilities in the forest preserve, he would use his influence to increase the number and size of those facilities. The chapter also discusses the commissioners' vision to protect the natural integrity of wild areas, promote quieter forms of recreation, shift the park's economy toward nature-oriented tourism, and tighten regulations on motorboats, snowmobiles, logging equipment, and other gasoline-powered machines. It highlights how a singular combination of political power and good timing persuaded the legislature to set up a new agency — Adirondack Park Agency (APA). The creation of the Adirondack Park Agency was one of three measures that Jerry considered essential to “saving” the Adirondacks. The other two were specifically focused on the large tracts of private land that defined the park's character.

Preliminary Analysis of Middle Holocene Lake-Level Change of Ancestral Lake Michigan, Wentworth Woods, Cook County, Illinois

Study of past lake-level change and isostasy in the upper Great Lakes has demonstrated the need to reconstruct relative lake-level history at each outlet during the Nipissing phase of ancestral Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Although elevation and age data exist for the Port Huron/Sarnia and Sault outlets of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, respectively, no paleohydrograph has been created for southern Lake Michigan near the Chicago outlet. The Wentworth Woods area of the Cook County Forest Preserve, Illinois, contains more than 30 beach ridges that formed during the rise and fall from the peak elevation of the Nipissing phase. These relict shorelines were vibracored to recover basal foreshore sediments that can be used as a proxy for lake-level elevation at the time of individual shoreline formation. In addition, sand samples from soil pits and vibracores were collected for optically stimulated luminescence age determinations. This report addresses the sedimentological data used to determine the elevation of the conjoined upper Great Lakes (Lake Nipissing) when each beach ridge formed. The age data will be presented in future reports.