Groups seek $6 million to preserve rare Wayne County prairie land

• Conservation teams are attempting to amass a comparatively undisturbed 440-acre forest, prairie and wetland advanced in Wayne County’s Brownstown Township.
• The teams should increase $6 million by the top of subsequent yr to amass and protect Sibley Prairie.

It is a distinctive alternative, stated Jack Smiley, president of the nonprofit Michigan Land Conservancy.

One of many final remaining giant remnants of undeveloped prairie land in southeastern Michigan, 440 acres of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Wayne County’s Brownstown Township, could possibly be preserved in its pure state for future generations to discover and luxuriate in — if the conservancy and different teams can increase $6 million to amass it.

The Sibley Prairie is situated west of Telegraph Street between Sibley and King Roads. The largely undisturbed acreage is owned by Fritz Enterprises Inc., a Trenton-based metal mill and scrap metallic processor, and has confronted improvement stress a number of instances in latest a long time. This summer time, Fritz officers have been getting ready to public sale the land to builders. However in August, the Michigan Land Conservancy was in a position to stop the public sale with a $1 million buy choice. The conservation group and its allied nonprofits now have a yr to boost $6 million to buy and protect the property.

“It is best identified for the patches of prairie which are nonetheless there that have not modified in millennia,” Smiley stated, including that Michigan has misplaced 99% of its lake plain prairie, a species-rich prairie neighborhood discovered on the seasonally moist floor of glacial lakes within the southern Nice Lakes area.

“The websites are comparatively small, however they’re house to an enormous variety of uncommon species. And what’s particular about this property is that it is not simply the prairie, it is a wealthy mosaic of habitats. There are over 158 hectares of wetlands on the property. There are some stunning pin oak woodlands and a few uncommon plant species within the woods. General, only a nice property.”

The nonprofit Detroit Fowl Alliance is among the many teams working to amass Sibley Prairie. Union board member and former president James Bull famous the property’s in depth native grasslands, which aren’t all the time shielded from improvement.

“Native grasslands are probably the most threatened habitat for birds,” he stated. “Grassland birds are actually in bother. So each time we will save habitat, we save the birds, we save the bugs, we save the pollinators. All of it goes collectively.”

The Michigan Pure Options Stock, a Michigan State College Extension analysis effort to gather details about the state’s pure assets and biodiversity, in a 1995 evaluation of the Michigan Plains prairie, known as the Sibley Street prairie advanced “the biggest and most various remnant of Michigan Plains prairie,” and stated it “represents our greatest hope for sustaining a practical Plains prairie ecosystem.”

The research recognized 14 particular plant species, together with seven species thought of endangered in Michigan, and the state-endangered Duke’s skipper butterfly.

Dennis Albert was the ecologist who helped assess Sibley Prairie for the Michigan Pure Options stock. He later joined the analysis school within the Division of Horticulture at Oregon State College, the place he’s now retired. He remembered the varied wetlands, grasses and forests at Sibley Prairie.

“Among the wetlands are a swamp kind known as flatwoods, which was frequent on the lake flats however are actually very uncommon,” he stated. “There are additionally some pin oaks and tupelos and a few very distinctive flora related to it.

“Each time I got here throughout a gaggle from that a part of the state doing schooling or one thing associated to wetlands, I ended up contacting them and reminding them that this (Sibley Prairie) was most likely probably the most essential websites in Michigan.”

Brownstown Township officers tried to amass the property for a landfill within the early Nineteen Nineties, an concept that so angered township residents that 4 township board members have been recalled in a February 1991 vote. The Sibley property was additionally supposed for greater than 1,000 residential items in a 2004 improvement proposal that in the end failed within the ensuing financial downturn.

Now a coalition together with Michigan Land Conservancy, Michigan Fowl Alliance, Associates of the Rouge, Michigan Botanical Society, Sierra Membership, Geese Limitless and different companions is in search of state and federal grants, company or rich particular person benefactors, and small donations from the general public to succeed in the $6 million buy worth by the top of subsequent yr and maintain the property undeveloped and pure.

“As soon as it turns into protected, we’ll make certain we develop acceptable public entry to the property in order that it is going to be an incredible leisure useful resource for individuals in Southeast Michigan – and I am certain individuals from all around the state will come right here,” Smiley stated.

For info, go to savesibleyprairie.org.

Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.