Transfer Joliet Training Area to Midewin

Thirty-one years ago, I served on the 24-member Joliet Arsenal Citizens Planning Committee formed by then-U.S. Rep. George Sangmeister to determine the future uses of the 23,000-acre former Army munitions plant.

Out of this planning process came the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, two industrial zones, a county landfill and the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.

During the planning process, the committee foresaw that the adjacent Joliet Army Training Area would itself someday be declared surplus due to development pressures all around it. The Joliet Training Area was part of the Arsenal’s original footprint, as was the 170-acre Cantigny Woods, previously owned by the Forest Preserve of Will County, and they share a 2-mile boundary. The connection was clear.

To ensure that the approximate 3,000-acre area be kept as open space, and not wanting to go through another protracted planning process, the committee unanimously approved the plan with the Joliet Army Training Area as a future addition to Midewin. Shepherded through Congress by then-U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller, the plan was codified into law by the Illinois Land Conservation Act of 1995. The committee’s foresight has proven to be spot-on because 29 years later, the area is now flanked by over 11,000 acres of intermodal facilities and over 1,000 new homes.

It’s important to transfer the Joliet Training Area to Midewin because the land is home to globally rare examples of dolomite prairie, rare species, sedge meadows, the Millsdale Seeps, Jackson Creek, Jackson Creek Woods, Cantigny Woods, and access to over a mile of the Des Plaines River shoreline. Moreover, it represents the work of dedicated citizens, bipartisan agreement among elected officials and the statewide support of conservation and veteran’s organizations that worked to pass the Midewin legislation.

With increasing development pressure reducing the buffer around the Joliet Training Area, the Army may see it as more valuable as a real estate asset than a training area. Without congressional intervention, the Army may make incremental and irrevocable decisions that will jeopardize the commitment of the Forest Service to accept the land and thus diminish its future use.

The current Illinois delegation and Gov. J.B. Pritzker should fulfill the vision that created America’s first National Tallgrass Prairie.

Francis M. Harty, Monticello, Former Dept. of Conversation representative, Sangmeister/Weller Joliet Arsenal Citizens Committee