Nature taking its (long) course at Butler Lake

The habitat for fish in Libertyville's Butler Lake is much improved, as the equivalent of nearly 7,000 truckloads of sediment was removed.

With a greater depth and fewer nutrients to feed plants that use oxygen and have contributed to past winter fish kills, young bluegills and bass stocked last fall should be pretty comfortable.

The village even has re-established fishing permits, which were on hold the past two years as a dredging and restoration project continued on its signature lake.

On shore, however, the long-sought $3.2 million aquatic ecosystem project is much slower to show results. With invasive species and cat tails removed, the banks appear scraggly and weed-strewn for up to 30 feet in from the water line.

The look has improved somewhat with a growth spurt in recent weeks. But it's still hard for the untrained eye to tell the weeds from the wild flowers.

"We do get questions -- 'Why does it look like that?' " said James Zych, the village's director of parks and recreation.

The short answer is it takes time to reverse conditions that have been entrenched for decades, experts say.

"That goes with the territory with native systems -- they don't always respond the way you think they'll respond," said Tony St. Aubin of JFNew. The Monee firm installed some of the native prairie plantings and is under contract to maintain them.

Baring the bank and introducing native plantings has proved to be trickier than usual, he said. Native plants germinated but were very small and faced aggressive competition as seed banks below the surface on the north shore were unearthed.

"We've had unpredictably excessive amounts of weeds out there," according to St. Aubin. Because of the tender state of the natives, the weeds couldn't be controlled by mowing and had to be pulled by hand.

On the lake's northeast side, oats are mixed in as a cover crop to show some green as the natives mature.

"They take at least three years to get established. They have a very intricate and dense root structure," explained Keith Gray of Integrated Lakes Management.

The Waukegan firm removed about seven acres of cattails and buckthorn, including those that had obstructed the view of the lake from West Street. Two acres were seeded with two dozen varieties of native plants.

Gray said the plantings reduce erosion and help intercept nutrients, such as phosphorous, before they enter the lake and contribute to nuisance water plants.

"A lot of the plants' energy goes down, not up. It makes sense why it doesn't look good this year," he said. "It doesn't look like anything has been done, but it really has."

Village officials note the lake is now visible from Cook Avenue, and a stairway to a lakefront path at that point has been built.

As for aesthetics, Gray and St. Aubin agree there is a need for long-term maintenance. Cattails are re-emerging and herbicide will have to be selectively applied.

"We're stepping it up," said St. Aubin, adding the scales are beginning to tip toward the native plants. "It definitely puts you to the test -- it's not a cookie-cutter project."

The village also will have to deal with invasive plants, such as wolffia, growing in the lake and making stretches appear like a putting green. Water-borne weeds will have to be dealt with, Zych said.

Herbicide was sprayed Friday, for example, on the green/brown weed mat floating near the shore.

"When they dredged the lake, they removed sediment but loosened all these buried weed seeds," he said.

The ongoing reconstruction of Lake Street, which borders Butler on the north and divides the lake from a lagoon and feeder stream, also is detracting from the normally picturesque area. The crumbling 1930s-era bridge on Lake Street will be replaced and accented with decorative lighting.

"Eventually, everything out there will be beautiful," Zych said.

The Butler Lake project began in the fall of 2005, after nearly 10 years of haggling with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is paying about $2.1 million of the cost.

"In our society today, we're instant this and instant that. We're trying to do it the natural way, which takes a little bit longer sometimes," Zych said.