Daily Herald opinion: A project ‘works out’: Two years after removal of Graue Mill dam, benefits growing around and under waters of Salt Creek

When a complex and controversial project proposal proves its merit, it deserves to be — nay, needs to be — applauded.

So it is with the removal of the Graue Mill dam at Fullersburg Woods in Oak Brook.

When first proposed, the project was greeted with complaints from area residents afraid that a piece of local history and a scenic backdrop would be destroyed with little reason to justify the loss. But environmentalists persisted, arguing that the dam built in 1934 was damaging to Salt Creek, visually out of place with the mid-19th century gristmill and incapable of powering the mill.

In November 2023, the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County partnered with the nonprofit DuPage River Salt Creek Workgroup to leverage funding from local wastewater treatment entities and remove the dam as part of a larger restoration project. Ten months later, when we first took a look at the progress along Salt Creek, authorities were encouraged by what they saw as signs of improvement in the area. Now, two years since the removal, they are confident and excited, as described in a story Sunday by our Katlyn Smith.

The forest district’s Erik Neidy declared the result “magnificent.” Stephen McCracken, director of the Salt Creek Workgroup said simply, “It’s been very gratifying to see how positive people are to the river in its current state.”

Among other successes, McCracken reflected on 16 species native to Salt Creek that previously were found only downstream from the dam. Two years later, already eight of the species have found their way back upstream.

“You need a couple of years’ sampling to see how that all works out,” he told Smith. “But the eight that I was most confident in that they should really be upstream under better conditions — in other words, if the barrier was not there — have all made the jump.”

And that’s not all. Scientists hope to see resurgence of other fish species, and restorations along a mile and a quarter of Salt Creek have cleared away buckthorn and honeysuckle to open the forest floor to sunlight. With that foundation, wildflowers are reappearing and organizers have completed plantings that attract pollinators and help stabilize the creek banks.

“So when you’re walking along the stream, it looks better, it sounds better, it smells better,” Neidy said.

As for the truly historic grist mill. It’s still there, as project organizers promised it would be, and functioning better than before.

It is all, in short, the kind of visionary project that probably happens more often than we realize but that doesn’t get acknowledged often enough.

“As a scientist, I’m always looking for physical validation that our predictions did work out,” McCracken said. “I’m extremely happy with the results.”

As we all can be.