In Case You Missed It - Here Are Some Programs From the Fall of 2019

By Connie Schmidt

A Ferry Forest Garden Tour

In September, Jodi Trendler of the Resiliency Institute led a stroll and interpretive walk through the permaculture garden on Ferry road just west of Rt. 59. This area demonstrates how communities can replace right of way lawns with public permaculture forest gardens, creating an edible park that grows food security and regenerates ecosystems. Our members were encouraged to taste, smell, and touch the edible plants in this amazing space. Jodi prepared a delicious Lemon Balm tea for all to taste as the sun set.

Wild Utah Program

In October, our friend Clayton Daughenbough who works tirelessly for protection of the fragile ecosystems in Utah, gave a great program and slide show of the importance of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). This amazing region  is noted for its unique character of native history and settlements, wild evolution of rock and geological formations, and delicate ecosystems striving to survive modern times.  SUWA works to build support for legislative protection at both the local and national level for this valued wilderness area. Research them to learn more and join and support at suwa.org .

What Lies Upstream

This film shown to members at the Glen Ellyn History Center brings home a message about what happened to a West Virginia river when lack of regulation failed it and companies polluted it, destroying drinking water for thousands of nearby residents. Described as a “political thriller” the story tells of Cullen Hoback who traveled to West Virginia to uncover the truth behind a massive chemical spill. A rousing discussion of how regulations here in Illinois are working and should be updated followed.

River Prairie Group Partners with Immigrant Solidarity DuPage to Improve Monarch Butterfly Habitat

By Bruce Blake

Last year, our River Prairie Group and Immigrant Solidarity DuPage landscaped and planted a Monarch Butterfly garden with native plants at the Glenside Public Library in Glendale Heights. The native plants that were used would attract, provide nectar, and allow Monarchs to lay eggs on milkweed. The Monarchs have been declining for many years through loss of habitat. Milkweed is the only plant that they will lay eggs on.

Jeff Gahris and I met with Cristobal Cavazos, Gabriela Hernandez Chico, and Rafael Vieyra from Immigrant Solidarity to work together on this project. Immigrant Solidarity is a local group in Dupage County that has many programs for promoting Latino culture. Mr. Cavazos and his team of volunteers work hard to involve people in their community. We had a meeting with Tom Bartenfelder, Director of the Glenside Library, who had such a positive attitude toward giving us a small section on the Library’s grounds to plant this garden. The plants we put in last year came up and bloomed fantastically! You could see lots of Monarchs and other butterflies. We would like to thank Mr. Bartenfelder and his staff for their wonderful cooperation.

This year, Mr. Bartenfelder asked if we could expand the garden around the building. We met with Jenifer Umlauf, a professional landscape designer and owner of Glen Ellyn Landscape Design, to come up with a professional design for the garden. The Glenside Library would cover the cost of design, planting materials, and some plants. Prairie Wind Native Plants donated the other 96 plants.

On a September afternoon, Jeff and Bonnie Gahris, from the River Prairie Group, joined Gabriela Hernandez Chico, her sons Isaac and Josue’, and her daughter Naomi, along with Sugeira Tellez, Sophia Mora, and Luis Mora, of Immigrant Solidarity,  to plant over 200 native forbs and grasses. We finally finished planting a few hours later, then mulched and watered. It should look great next year. The Library installed a bench after we finished.

The Monarch Butterfly is very important in Latino culture. The celebration of Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead)  remembers and honors those departed. It is a huge festival and coincides with the Monarchs returning to overwinter in Mexico on their migration route. The Monarchs are symbolic of the dead spirits returning home.

Immigrant Solidarity sponsored a Monarch Festival in Glendale Heights in August. Several hundred people attended with great food, music, and entertainment. Members of the DuPage Monarch Project were invited to join them. Bonnie Blake, Judith Horsley, and I were there to answer question about Monarchs. We were pretty busy answering questions from “Where do monarchs go in the winter?” to “Do butterflies bite?”

Interested in getting a native garden growing in your community? Give me an e-mail  - rllnstns1@aol.com

Leadership by the Illinois Chapter Results in Landmark Resolution: Moving to Unite Immigrant Rights with Climate Action Now

By Connie Schmidt

In late summer, the Il Chapter Executive Committee voted to present a resolution at the National Council of Club Leaders regarding the Sierra Club’s responsibility to support migrants against the inhumane treatment happening at our boarders and in our cities. In September the following was presented and voted with overwhelming support at the Council:

(l-r) Jack Darren, Illinois Chapter Director, Christine Williamson,
Chicago Group Chair, and Tony Fuller, Sierra Club Board of Directors

"The Council of Club Leaders requests that the Board of Directors, recognizing the critical intersections between climate and migration issues, endorse policies that support respect, dignity, and liberation for migrants, including: abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), decriminalizing migration, reuniting all separated families, and halting the deportation of people not convicted of violent crimes."

Initially, the idea of abolishing ICE appeared quite radical, but as we discussed it over conference calls, Chapter members learned that ICE was only recently established during the Bush administration as a response to 9/11. Prior to ICE, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), a branch of the US Department of Justice, handled Immigration issues. The Department of Homeland security was created as a response to the 9/11 attacks, and one of its three branches is ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement). The leadership of the Illinois Chapter of Sierra Club feels that ICE is a radical response to the fear and terror created from 9/11 and now creates havoc where previous systems worked appropriately.

The resolution goes on to explain:

"The Sierra Club supports respect, dignity, and liberation for all people.

"Yet our country, our movement, and our organization have a checkered history when it comes to practicing these fundamental values. Our Club has come close to officially adopting explicitly anti-immigration positions more than once.

"Today we seek to learn from these mistakes. We seek to listen more attentively to communities on the front lines of environmental harm, to make our Club more inclusive and welcoming to all people, and to stand with people and organizations whose values align with our own.

"We do this both because it is morally right and because to make the changes we seek will require more people and more power than our movement alone. We must stand with our allies if we want them to stand with us.

"This intersects directly with our work. Our efforts to stop the causes of climate change must also grapple with its effects, and agricultural collapse fueled by climate change is a major driver of migration from Central America.

"The mistreatment of migrants is a humanitarian crisis and a threat to our democracy. Our values demand we actively oppose it. Inaction is tacit approval and complicity."

Now that the Council of club leaders has approved this resolution, it has been sent to the National Board of Directors, who will consider it as well. I hope you will join with me in the feeling of pride for this amazing statement regarding our social responsibility as we work to protect the planet and all her inhabitants.

RPG Apprentice Makes Her Mark

by Linda Sullivan

“Dynamo” is how Illinois Chapter Chair Connie Schmidt described her. River Prairie Group Chair Jeffrey Gahris noted her poise. RPG was blessed to have apprentice Emilee Chaclas assigned to help organize support for the Clean Energy Jobs Act in DuPage County this fall. 

l-r Jeff Gahris, Linda Sullivan,
State Rep. Terra Costa Howard, and
Emilee Chaklas

Ms. Chaclas was one of seven apprentice organizers hired and deployed strategically throughout the state as a result of a grant to Illinois Sierra Club from Green Tech Action Fund with supplemental funds from Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. Originally set to cover October through November, some apprentices, including Emilee, are extending their employment through mid-December.

At times, Ms. Chaclas seemed to be everywhere. She organized a Clean Energy Strategy Meeting at Helen Plum Library in Lombard that was attended by 40 volunteers, collected some 500 postcards in favor of CEJA, reached out to student groups at Elmhurst College and to students in high schools, and tabled at numerous farmers’ markets and clean energy events. Her organizing skills resulted in an overflowing bus of DuPage volunteers going to Clean Energy Lobby Day in Springfield on October 29^th.

In a world focused on job metrics, veteran RPG volunteers appreciated that Emilee focused on developing volunteers who would stay with the RPG long term. “I’m only here for a matter of months,” she commented. “It is important that new people connect with the volunteers that are the backbone of the RPG.”

A Pittsburgh native, Ms. Chaclas recently graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Political Science.  She canceled plans to take the Law School Admissions Test and moved to Chicago when the chance to work for Sierra Club was offered. “I want to work in a field I care about," she said. “Working for Sierra Club and for the Clean Energy Jobs Act gives me a chance to do something meaningful.”

“We’re so grateful to have Emilee part of our team!” said Caroline Wooten, lead organizer with the Illinois Chapter. “She always brings a positive attitude that elevates the mood of people around her. She’s smart, focused, and motivated to build a strong climate movement that creates room for everyone.”

Butterflies at the Bolingbrook Golf Club

By Julianna Gerdes

While the thought of playing a round of golf at Bolingbrook Golf Club may bring butterflies to your stomach, Bolingbrook’s meticulous greens and perfectly pinstriped fairways offer more than just the familiar feeling of excitement. Though numerous types of butterflies find a home on the course, Bolingbrook takes special pride in their extensive monarch butterfly population.

The monarch butterfly population has drastically declined over the past twenty years, to the point that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering putting this important pollinator on the Endangered Species List. The Village of Bolingbrook and the Bolingbrook Golf Club have been working for many years to make Endangered Species Listing for monarchs unnecessary. When the Village constructed the golf course in 2002, Mayor Roger Claar and the Village Trustees put the environment at the forefront of the design plans. The course includes wetland plantings, numerous lakes, and over 100 acres of native prairie and grasslands, which are the perfect habitat for monarchs. Just as the Village offers numerous restaurants and dining experiences for its residents, the native prairie offers a smorgasbord for the monarchs to feast. The fescue areas are abundant with Wild Carrot, Goldenrod, Thistles, Joe Pye Weed, and various types of milkweed. The most preferred plant of them all is the Swamp milkweed, but monarchs do enjoy any variety of milkweed available.

The Club annually harvests milkweed seeds of different types from the native areas. It propagates those seeds and plants them in new locations on the course the following spring. Along with starting new seeds in containers, the Club also directly sows the seeds into new locations. This is done by aerifying the ground first, then dropping the seeds into the aerified locations. Milkweeds are the only plants that monarchs will lay their eggs on, which is why the plant is so critical for their success and why Bolingbrook increases its milkweed population every year. Jeff Gerdes, Golf Course Superintendent, has utilized maintenance practices since the club opened to ensure the monarchs are happy. The course uses organic fertilizers such as chicken manure, and recycles effluent water to irrigate the course. These are great sources of natural nutrients and allow for the reduction in use of manufactured fertilizer. The native fescue areas are maintained with prescribed burns rather than the use of herbicides for controlling weeds. These burns are done only after the first frost has occurred, instead of in early fall, giving monarch chrysalises on the milkweed as much time as possible to hatch. “We want to do all that we can to protect and promote the beauty Mother Nature and her resources provide to Bolingbrook. Bolingbrook Golf Club is proud of the efforts made, and the results from these practices ensure that our wildlife and natural habitats are cherished and not taken for granted,” said Gerdes.

In addition to the 100-plus acres of native areas, the course has created several pollinator gardens throughout the grounds. These gardens have showy annuals and perennials preferred by monarchs, bees, and hummingbirds. The gardens provide a great food source through Coneflowers, Butterfly Bushes, Asters, and Columbines, just to name a few of the colorful flowers.

Several residents of the community participate in the monarch efforts at the club, as well. Cindy Hennessy and Peggie Mcmillan have donated numerous varieties of milkweed seed to the club and harvested other varieties of seed from the course. Hennessy has also promoted monarchs by supplying butterfly kits to schools, libraries, and many other organizations as an educational tool to inform the public of the fragile future for monarchs. In addition to their work at the Club, they have worked with Mayor Claar to create butterfly gardens throughout the Village of Bolingbrook.

The golf course works closely with several organizations as part of the monarch preservation process. The golf course is a registered Monarch station (#21889) with the Monarch Watch organization. Bolingbrook Golf Club was also one of the initial clubs to join “Monarchs in the Rough,” which is a program sponsored by Audubon International. Both of these organizations have specific criteria for monarch habitats that have to be met and maintained to stay in good standing. Also, The Conservation Foundation, a DuPage Monarch Project partner, determined Bolingbrook Golf Club has an environmentally friendly landscape and certified it through their Conservation @Work program.

This year the club and community are working with the Chicago Field Museum and will participate in new initiatives created by the museum to further promote monarchs.

Bolingbrook is very excited about the success they have had and are expanding their efforts for the future. They are hopeful that others will learn of the importance of monarchs as pollinators in the ecosystem, and also take measures to save the monarchs. If you want to enjoy monarchs and the beautiful habitat they live in, all you have to do is visit Bolingbrook Golf Club. 

Jeff Gerdes is available and can be reached at the golf course (630) 771-9400 if you have any questions, concerns, or would like to offer support to the monarchs.