Thousands of new trees coming to Brunner Forest Preserve
The Brunner Forest Preserve will be home to more than 6,000 new trees as part of a revised agreement between Kane County forest district and transportation officials, but it's going to be a while before there any real changes.
The revised plan comes as part of the forest preserve district's decision to not revive the lodge or business operations of the former Raging Buffalo Snowboard Park in Algonquin. An older deal had the district working with Kane County Division of Transportation officials to rebuild the lodge. The deal also included paying the district $500,000 in exchange for allowing KDOT to dump excess soil from the Longmeadow Parkway project at the Raging Buffalo site to redo the ski and sledding slopes.
Raging Buffalo now only exists as Buffalo Park, a natural area without the previous amenities. KDOT will move forward with building a restroom and reconstructing a small parking lot at the site as part of the new deal.
The more visible change will be the planting of 6,300 new trees in Brunner. But the county is also working on a contract to have those trees grown to at least 1 inch in diameter before they are planted in the preserve. That means it will be several years before the trees are planted there.
New forest preserve district President Chris Kious said he'd prefer larger trees to be planted sooner. Kious has also consistently voted against the Longmeadow Parkway project.
"It'll be 10 years before there's really a tree there," Kious said. "When the (Longmeadow Parkway) bridge is paid off, and then I'm 80 years old, I'd like to see a tree."
County officials said allowing the trees to grow and be nurtured will improve their chances of surviving from a seed. And transplanting the trees into the preserve while still small will improve their chances of surviving in the wild.
The 6,300 trees are part of up to 13,000 trees being planted as part of the Longmeadow Parkway project, a tree-lined parkway and Fox River bridge crossing with a landscaped median, approximately 5.6 miles in length, running from Huntley Road to Route 62. Work will continue on the project through 2021 with detail work lingering through 2022.