Natural Land Institute Files Lawsuit to Save Bell Bowl Prairie from Rockford Airport Expansion

The Natural Land Institute filed a lawsuit Tuesday to stop expansion work being done by the Chicago Rockford International Airport that would destroy one of the state’s last remaining virgin prairies.

The institute, which has been caring for the roughly 5-acre gravel prairie in Winnebago County for decades, is asking a judge to temporarily halt work that is scheduled to begin Monday.

Filed on Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the suit names several defendants, including the Greater Rockford Airport Authority and its board members, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The airport has been building a 280-acre expansion, which includes constructing a road through the prairie. In August, the federally endangered rusty patched bumblebee was discovered on the prairie, temporarily halting construction. The bee typically stops foraging in November, but queens hibernate underground to emerge and lay eggs in spring.

Rebecca Epperson, a consultant for the airport, said Wednesday, “The airport has not been served with any complaint, so we have no comment at this time.”

The land institute has joined forces with the Illinois Environmental Council and a chapter of the Sierra Club, among other environmental groups, to urge citizens to send letters and make phone calls asking politicians to save the prairie.

“Momentum is really picking up,” said Tucker Barry, communications director for the environmental council. “Over 6,000 people in the state have already contacted officials and decisions-makers about this.

“They’re asking for time to come to an alternative sustainable project design,” he said. “They’re asking for time to reassess the area in spring to see if the bumblebee is in the prairie.”

The virgin gravel prairie where the bee was discovered is part of roughly 18.4 acres of this type of prairie left in the state, according to the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory.

“We are here with grief in our hearts to file a lawsuit for injunction relief … to stop the bulldozers from destroying what took 8,000 years to create,” said Kerry Leigh, executive director of the land institute at a news conference Wednesday in Rockford.

The institute has asked airport authorities to meet with them to consider alternative methods to the expansion plans that would save the prairie. So far the airport has not scheduled a meeting.

Landscape architect Domenico D’Alessandro has designed an alternative concept for the airport expansion layout. His plan, which was shown at a recent land institute public meeting, includes rerouting the road that would go through the prairie.

The airport has received federal funds for several expansions over the years with support from U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.

His communications director, Emily Hampsten, said in an email, “While Sen. Durbin is proud of the federal funding he has helped secure over the years to help expand cargo operations and create jobs at RFD, the access road project in question is not being funded with federal money.”

Lindsay Keeney, conservation director at the environmental council, said saving the prairie is one step Illinois can take to lead a charge made by President Joe Biden to protect open space and curb climate change under the “America the Beautiful” plan. The plan aims to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and water by 2030.

Bell Bowl contains at least 164 species of plants, many of which are rare, and birders have found rare nesting birds such as the grasshopper sparrow. Only one-hundredth of 1% of this type of prairie remains in Illinois.

Leigh has said it is “shameful” to continue calling Illinois the Prairie State.

Attorneys from von Briesen & Roper in Milwaukee and Albert Ettinger, a former senior staff attorney at the Environmental Law and Policy Center, filed the injunction on behalf of the land institute.

George Fell founded the institute in 1958 and successfully saved the prairie over the years, although it has been whittled away from its original 20 or more acres.

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