Tag Archives: illinois river road scenic byway

The State of Fermata

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Only rarely do I find the time or inclination to let you know what we have accomplished. One of the curses of a business like this is we never have time to recline and enjoy our handiwork, We are invariably rushing to the next contract, to the next meeting. As my grandmother often said, “there is no rest for the wicked” (which, to this date, I still do not understand). We are proud of all of our projects, and here are a select few that are in the headlines at the moment.

Illinois

Illinois River Road Scenic Byway

Starved Rock

A few weeks ago I wrote on our weblog about the Illinois River Road Scenic Byway. This byway runs along the Illinois River from (roughly speaking) Starved Rock State Park to the Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon sanctuary and Havana.

Anaise Berry is the Director for the Illinois River Road National Scenic Byway, and this morning she sent me the following:

The Illinois River Road National Scenic Byway’s website had 7,790 visitors during the month of September, a 25% increase over the average number of monthly visitors – a new high for the two-year old website. Although visits to the Byway website have been trending steadily upward, this boost likely resulted from a lengthy feature article about traveling the Illinois River Road, which appears in the October 2010 issue of Midwest Living® Magazine.

The Midwest Living® article has generated considerable interest in the Byway region, stretching from Ottawa to Havana, also resulting in a record number of requests for information about the region. These requests for visitor information are coming not only from Chicago area residents, but also from Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa. This kind of attention puts all of our Byway Gateway, Portal and Supporting Communities in the “visitor spotlight,” showcasing this very special region to potential visitors.

With the Calendar of Events being the most frequently visited page on the website, this is a great time for communities, sites and organizations to upload events and goings-on scheduled for this Fall, Winter and next Spring! Byway travelers are looking for authentic experiences along their journey, and will plan their itineraries based upon events and sites in the various Byway communities. Festivals, cultural events and eagle watching are just a sampling of the events are visitors want to explore.

Hackmatack

Big Bluestem

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced their decision to proceed with a study to determine the feasibility of establishing a Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge in the bi-state region of southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois. Long known as an ecological hotspot, the region is home to many rare bird, fish, freshwater mussel and plant species, as well as some of the world’s most globally imperiled natural communities, including tall grass prairie and oak savanna. Fermata, under contract to Openlands and the Trust for Public Land, developed a viability study for this proposed refuge. This effort has received unflagging support from the Friends of Hackmatack, and nowhere did their support count more than in the four public meetings held by the USFWS to discuss the refuge. We are elated to see that USFWS continue on with this important project.

Pennsylvania

Columbia bridge, Lower Susquehanna
Fermata finished its final Conservation Landscape Initiative (CLI), the Lower Susquehanna. Of the seven PA DCNR CLIs Fermata developed five. This approach to sustainable development, recreation, and tourism has already received recognition. In 2009 the National Association of Recreation Resource Planners (NARRP) recognized PA DCNR with its planning award for the Laurel Highlands CLI, one of Fermata’s projects. The department’s regional approach to conserving landscapes and tying them to economic growth for communities is one of the creative government initiatives chosen for the “Bright Ideas Program” by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Ted Eubanks and Fermata began working for PA DCNR in Pennsylvania a decade ago, and our earliest work on elk watching in Northcentral PA became the PA Wilds and the CLIs. Congratulations to all.

Illinois River Road Scenic Byway – The Long and Winding Road

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Banner Marsh

Fermata’s projects are often protracted affairs, epical rather than ephemeral. Our work often extends for a decade or more, with the completion of each phase catalyzing another. Frequently the people we began a project with move on to new opportunities or retirement before we finish. We are often the last one’s standing, the only people remaining who remember precisely how it all began.

One door opens as another closes, and one of ours, the Illinois River Road, has recently shut. Our work along the Illinois River began over seven years ago, in March 2003. Meetings with Michael Reuter, Doug Blodgett, and Jo Skoglund of the Illinois Nature Conservancy in Peoria then focused on their needs for a public use plan for a new property they were restoring – Emiquon. Once one of America’s most productive fisheries, Emiquon had been drained and farmed for corn for nearly a century. The Conservancy had acquired the property, and had plans to restore the backwater wetlands and marshes.

During the same trip I met Keith Arnold and Vicky Clark with the Peoria CVB, an organization whose support would lead us ultimately to a new national scenic byway. Vicky had been contemplating a scenic byway for the region, and I quickly became interested in the Illinois River Road (a moribund state byway that ran along the river). After we completed the public use plan for Emiquon, the Peoria CVB asked us to help organize a byway along the river. We began (wisely) at the local level, and eventually developed the Illinois River Country Nature Trail. Fermata developed guides for each of the trail loops, and an organizational structure that would serve us well in the next phases of the work.

Next we were asked to develop the Corridor Management Plan for a new federal byway, the Illinois River Road. In 2005 the byway received federal designation, one of two that we had been associated with to receive designation that year (the other being Wetlands and Wildlife in Kansas). The byway next received an enhancement grant from the National Scenic Byway Program, and we were asked to help develop many of the enhancements. After masterminding an interpretive plan, Fermata has now completed a byway guide, brochure, maps, and interpretive signs. The signs were delivered to Peoria in early August, bringing our work to a close.

Illinois River Cruiser

We thank Anaise Berry (Director), Keith Arnold (now at the Corpus Christi CVB) and Vicky Clark (at the EDCCI), the Economic Development Council of Central Illinois, the Heartland Partnership, and communities such as Pekin, Peoria, Canton, Princeton, Ottawa, Chillicothe, and Havana for their support and interest over the years. The byway board has been incredibly helpful and supportive over the years as well, and a few (Terry Svob and Michael Wiant, for example) have been involved since the beginning. Finally, I want to thank the Fermata associates both past and current who continue to generate sterling work after all of these years. Without people such as Brenda Adams-Weyant, Sandra Murphy, and Maja Smith involved, none of this would have happened. I am indeed blessed with such a creative, accomplished, and patient team.

For more information about this byway project, the executive summary that we prepared is available here.

Ted Eubanks
15 August 2010