WINTER 2023
After the Levee Broke … Again January 2, 2016: Bursting with record rainfall, the Mississippi River broke open a mile-long gap in the levee wall near Dogtooth Bend peninsula, at the southwest tip of Illinois. Roughly one-third the volume of the river flowed through the breach, estimates the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When the river retreated, it left behind sand dunes, deep craters and gullies. Local landowners like Bill McClarney saw their farms and livelihoods upended. “We sustained a lot of damage, a lot of scouring, trash everywhere, and four- to six-feet high sand drifts,” he says. The 2016 flood was not the first or last catastrophic deluge in Dogtooth Bend. Locals list flood years—such as 1993 and 2019— as easily as family birthdays. But the 2016
flood didn’t just break a levee. It also made landowners question the future of farming in Dogtooth Bend. The Nature Conservancy (TNC) held listening sessions to learn how best to help. “Multiple landowners told us the river has changed, and that it will likely never go back to the way it was,” says Viv Bennett, director of protection and conservation strategies. Today, TNC is working with federal agencies to provide landowners with a financially viable way to transition from crop farming in the area. At the same time, TNC and partners will be restoring the peninsula’s floodplains, which are low-lying natural areas adapted to flooding, into habitat for migrating birds and other wildlife.
IN THIS ISSUE: 2 It Takes a Network of Volunteers 3 Winter Adventures Await in TNC Preserves 3 Test Your Knowledge: Wildlife Success Stories 4 Crops + Nature: A Collaboration 6 Community News Briefs 7 The Transition to Solar and Wind Power 7 Saving Forests in Indonesia
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