Cache River, Illinois: Watershed Science and Policy: Grants and Pilot Projects

Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20170703070727/http://www.fws.gov/birdhabitat/Grants/NAWCA/Standard/US/1999_Sept.shtm

From the site:
Project: Cache River Wetlands III.
Location: Johnson County, Ilinois.
Congressional District: 19.
Grantee: The Nature Conservancy.
Contact: Mike Baltz, (309) 673-6689.
Partners: Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Citizens to Save the Cache, American Forests, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Aquascape Designs, Inc., Hotchkiss Associates, Inc., Mr. Harry Drucker, Mr. Nicolaas Kist, and Mr. Henry Barkhauser.
Approved: September 15, 1999.
Grant: $740,000.
Matching Funds: $1,480,000.
Nonmatching Funds: $3,010,000.
Joint Venture Region: Upper Mississippi-Great Lakes.

In this the third phase of the Project, The Nature Conservancy will acquire 2,802 acres known as the Rose Farms tract. Of the 2,802 acres, 1,900 acres will be restored to their former wetlands functions and 1,591 acres will be enhanced. The Cache River wetland complex will eventually comprise 49,000 acres (35,000 acres at Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge, and 14,000 acres at the State natural areas). The area is comprised of exceptional, high quality, riverine wetland habitat for migrating and breeding waterfowl, raptors, shorebirds, and neotropical birds and threatened and endangered plants and animals. The Cache River wetlands have been recognized as Wetlands of International Importance by the Ramsar Convention, one of only 15 sites in the United States to have been conferred with this designation.

Acquisition and restoration of the Rose Farms tract will link two existing State natural areas, providing a 14,000-acre block of contiguous riverine wetland habitat. Most importantly, this Project will reconnect the Upper and Lower Cache River segments, which had been artificially separated into two distinct systems in the early 1900s. This reconnecting is imperative to return a minimum level, natural flow regime to the Lower Cache River, which should improve all wetlands associated with the Lower Cache and provide benefits to the wildlife and people that use the habitat.