A major renovation project is happening at the Woodland Dunes Nature Center.
Executive Director Sue Crowley tells SeehaferNews.com that it needs $800,000 in funding for “Forget Me Not” Creek.
She explained that the project would fix the creek after ditches had been put in due to local farming.
“Given it’s on our property, we want to re-meander that stream,” she explained. “Make it a crooked, windy, and twisty again, and a little shallower so that more fish can use it in a healthy fashion, and any other critters as well.”
Crowley says the project started back in 2017 with a consulting firm to develop a design for the creek.
The plan took a couple of years to put together because grant funding was needed.
The design and outline also needed some time to be created.
Members at Woodland Dunes had a presentation on November 10th to talk about the implementation phase, which started with removing some dirt last month.
Crowley says the project could be finished by the end of the year.
“Things are on a pause right now because we did finally get some much-needed rain,” she described. “But that causes the site to be not accessible by some of the equipment that we need to use to do the project.”
After the work is done, Crowley says there should be a more robust habitat in the area.
More improvements will be made to Woodland Dunes in the future.
More information on new hikes will also be coming out.
According to former Executive Director Jim Knickelbine, the creek was supposedly named for the forget-me-not flowers which were planted along the banks by an early German settler.
