The Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge is located on the Illinois River in Mason County northeast of

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

. It is managed by the

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

as one of the four ''Illinois River National Wildlife and Fish Refuges''. The refuge consists of 4,388 acres (17.8 km²) of Illinois River bottomland, nearly all of it

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The p ...

. The parcel is the former ''Chautauqua Drainage and Levee District'', a failed riverine polder. In the 1920s, workers with steam shovels surrounded the levee district with a large

dike Dyke (UK) or dike (US) may refer to: General uses * Dyke (slang), a slang word meaning "lesbian" * Dike (geology), a subvertical sheet-like intrusion of magma or sediment * Dike (mythology), ''Dikē'', the Greek goddess of moral justice * Dikes ...

in an attempt to create a large new parcel of agricultural farmland. The levee district proved to be financially unable to maintain the dike, however, and the Illinois River reclaimed the polder. The complex alluvial topography that had existed before this intervention was replaced by the broad shallow pool of Chautauqua Lake. In 1936, the federal government acquired the Chautauqua Drainage and Levee District parcel, including the dikes that enclosed the pool, and began to manage it for wildlife-refuge and

flood control Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...

purposes. The flood-control aspects of this management have grown more challenging in the years since, as continued

agricultural runoff Agricultural pollution refers to biotic and abiotic byproducts of farming practices that result in contamination or degradation of the environment and surrounding ecosystems, and/or cause injury to humans and their economic interests. The pol ...

and

siltation Siltation, is water pollution caused by particulate Terrestrial ecoregion, terrestrial Clastic rock, clastic material, with a particle size dominated by silt or clay. It refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments and to the ...

of the Illinois River has made much of Chautauqua Lake shallower. On some shoreline strips of the lake, the silt has built up to the level of the lake surface, and an alluvial topography of sloughs and

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

woodlands may be slowly re-establishing itself. However, many of the plant and animal

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

inhabiting the current Chautauqua Lake and Wildlife Refuge and adjacent Illinois River are nonnative and invasive species such as the Asian carp. As of 2005, of the 4,388 acres (17.8 km²) of the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge, 3,200 acres (12.9 km²) were classified as an open pool, 800 acres (3.2 km²) were classified as "water and timbered bottomland", and the remaining 388 acres (1.6 km²) were classified as upland forest. The closest numbered highway is

U.S. Highway 136 U.S. Route 136 is an east-west U.S. highway that is a spur route of U.S. Route 36. It runs from Edison, Nebraska, at U.S. Route 6 and U.S. Route 34 to the Interstate 74/Interstate 465 interchange in Speedway, Indiana. This is a distance of . U ...

in Mason County. A nesting pair of bald eagles was observed in the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge in the winter of 2005-06. The Cameron/Billsbach Unit is a detached section of the refuge located further north, in Marshall County, near

Henry, Illinois Henry is a city in Marshall County, Illinois, United States. The population was 2,464 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Peoria, Illinois Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Henry is named after General James D. Henry, and was initiall ...

. It covers an additional 1,079 acres (4.37 km²).Chautauqua NWR
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

References

External links

Official site
- The Emiquon Project, a wetland restoration project, is located across the Illinois River from Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge {{authority control Protected areas of Mason County, Illinois National Wildlife Refuges in Illinois Illinois River Protected areas established in 1936 Protected areas of Marshall County, Illinois Landforms of Mason County, Illinois Landforms of Marshall County, Illinois Wetlands of Illinois 1936 establishments in Illinois