Public Comments from January 27th, 2022 Airport Board Meeting

Written statements provided by the speakers:

Don Miller

I was born and raised and will be buried in Winnebago County a place that I have loved all my life. I was fortunate to have parents that introduced me to the natural world and helped me experienced its beauty. For that I am very grateful.

I came home from college in the late 70’s with a degree in Biology. By this time, I knew the forested areas and all the rivers in the Winnebago County very well. I was introduced to the prairie ecosystem in college and so when I came home, I started to explore the prairies surrounding my hometown.

I heard about the Fell’s and the work they were doing at the Natural Land Institute. In the early 80’s a group was formed, called the “Prairie People.” It was assemblage of dedicated volunteers doing restoration work and educating others about local remnant prairies and their importance. It was a time of enlightenment for me.

During the 80’s and early 90’s we spent time on numerous prairies throughout the County, including Bell Bowl prairie. We hosted walks at these areas, we took people to see the rare Carolina anemone, cactus, prairie dandelion, the bell’s vireo at Bell Bowl. We hosted one of our annual prairie appreciation days there that was attended by approximately 75 people. We even had t-shirts made of the event. It says “Bell Bowl Prairie, The Greater Rockford Airport, a protected refuge of native species.”

We only save and protect things that we understand, love, and have a connection to.

Bell Bowl Prairie is 8,000 years in the making. It is a place full of complex relationships between soil, weather, plant, animal, fungi, and so much more. As unique to this world as anything can possibly be. We can find a way to honor it and protect it as well as have an expansion of the airport!

I have been walking through Bell Bowl Prairie for over 4 decades and I know its true worth. I wonder how many of you as board members or staff have been on it? not just on it, but tried to understand it. To appreciate it?

David Brower has said one of the misgivings of the environmental movement is that we don’t invite those holding political office or those in decision making positions, to get out from behind their desk and visits natural areas that are so important to US.

I worked for almost 3 decades at a place where we had 15-20,000 school age kids as well as adults come through our education programs annually. But when it comes to protecting land, one needs only to educate one or two people about the importance of their property they own and it can be protected.

I am sure a relatively small group of people made the decision to plot the destruction of this priceless piece of history and its future. And those of you in front of me tonight can undo that decision of destruction.

I have been on the prairie with previous airport administrators and staff members. I know that currently all the boxes have supposedly been checked to get the okay to legally desecrate the prairie, but that doesn’t make it the right thing to do?

I would like you to experience Bell Bowl Prairie and to have an understanding and develop an appreciation for it. I’d be glad to go with you on that exploration. Thank you!

Jackie Kuroda

My name is Jackie Kuroda. I am a senior at Guilford High School, a member of the Illinois Young Birders, and a youth board member of the Sinnissippi Audubon. I care about nature, habitat, the environment, and the future of all of these in our community.

We have been living in the beginning of another mass extinction. During the past decade, in almost half of my lifetime, 467 species have been declared extinct. Others have been brought to the brink and many are seeing serious declines in their population numbers. Entire ecosystems are collapsing because of human development and expansion. As you are aware, right here in Rockford and on this property, an ancient 8,000 year old prairie is slated for destruction.

This prairie contains some of the most intact and undisturbed natural plant communities found anywhere in the state of Illinois. There is less than one-hundredth of one percent of prairie remaining in our state.

And dry gravel prairies, like Bell Bowl, which rest on a substrate of broken stone deposited when glaciers retreated thousands of years ago, are almost extinct. There were once hundreds of acres of this land in the state. Bell Bowl consists of less than 20 acres of the entire 80 acres remaining.

It is also habitat for nine State Threatened and Endangered Species, as well as the Federally Endangered Rusty Patched Bumblebee.

The rusty patched bumblebee has declined by 87% in the last 20 years. The species is likely to be present in only 0.1% of its historical range. These bees once occupied grasslands and tallgrass prairies of the Upper Midwest and Northeast, but most grasslands and prairies have been lost, degraded, or fragmented by conversion to other uses. They need areas that provide nectar and pollen from flowers, nesting sites, and overwintering sites for hibernating queens.

There is most likely a hibernating queen in the soil at Bell Bowl Prairie, but you still want to pave a road over it. You would rather talk about profits and revenue than look toward the future for my generation and future generations that want to be able to see what a dry gravel prairie looks like or watch a rusty patched bumblebee fly from plant to plant. You pretend that there are no solutions to having both the prairie and the airport expansion when they have been presented to you. You will not take the time to listen to these solutions. You are failing us. 

The younger generation is watching you and we will not forgive you if you destroy Bell Bowl Prairie.