By FRED KRONER
fred@sjodaily.com
Everyone has days where they arrive at work feeling overwhelmed, thinking about some 3,900 items that have made their way onto the to-do list.
Tim Edison can relate.
Every day, when he arrives at the office, he has more than 3,900 acres that he is responsible for.
Edison is the site superintendent at the Kickapoo State Recreation Area, west of Danville. It’s a job he started in August, 2017.
There is no clear starting point for addressing what needs to be done.
“The first thing,” Edison said, “is learning and understanding the park.
“I’m still in the process. It seems to be a lot sometimes.”
Edison will prioritize a work list, but he has learned the importance of being flexible.
“Every day is different,” he said. “You have goals for what to get done in a week, but three out of five days, you end up being drawn away.”
When on task, Edison said, “you try to focus on the highest use areas.”
He is not only responsible for Kickapoo (3,981 acres), but also Middle Fork (2,813 acres) and the Harry ‘Babe’ Woodyard State Natural Area (1,083 acres).
He had no choice but to address one major issue immediately when the Emerald Ash Borer began to make its presence felt in Vermilion County.
“In some areas, over 20 percent (of the trees) are ash,” Edison said. “When it hits, it hits fast.”
Foresters removed the trees.
“Most (trees) we would leave in the areas here they were cut down,” Edison said. “People would come in and pick them up for firewood at no charge.
“I consider it cleaning up the park.”
The project is ongoing.
“The forester marked 187 trees a couple months ago,” Edison said, “and we’re seeing signs in others.”
The removal is Step 1.
Next on the list is to replenish the areas.
“In areas that are void of trees, we will replant,” Edison said. “Red Oak. White Oak. Chinkapin Oak. Pin Oak. Pecan.”
Not every area will be filled in.
“We’ll get shade for camp sites and shelters,” Edison said, “but we’ll keep open areas open for recreation.
“The important thing is you need diversity in case something does come in.”
Dutch Elm Disease, which can be traced back to the 1950s and 1960s in Illinois, wreaked havoc in parks and communities in the past.
As with any major issue, change won’t be immediate.
“Things take time,” Edison said. “Nothing can happen quickly.
“Hopefully this (Emerald Ash Borer) is a short-term problem, but it will be with a long-term wait (for results).”
Edison hates to see the rapid changes of scenery.
“It’s always sad when you look at it,” he said. “It has an affect on the landscape. It’s almost devastating some of the landscapes.”
The job is a labor of love for Edison.
A native of Carol Stream, in suburban Chicago, Edison developed a fondness for the outdoors at a young age.
“I’ve loved to fish and hunt since I was little,” he said. “This (job) is like a dream come true.”
Some days and some shifts are longer than others, but he’s not counting the hours.
“The amount of time is decreased significantly when you work at something you like,” Edison said. “You’re spending time working and getting things to where they should be.”
He’s not alone.
His staff includes an office coordinator, three technicians — a number which he hopes will increase — and “a lot of volunteers,” Edison said.
“The volunteers are a great part of working here.”
Those who donate their hours aren’t told where to direct their energy.
“They’re most effective getting work done if they go with their passion,” Edison said.
The workforce features people much like Edison.
“I have a highly motivated staff that loves doing their jobs,” he said. “They share the same love of the park.”
Edison earned his bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Illinois and followed up with a master’s degree in science from the UI in 2003.
“From that point, I worked as a Private Lands Biologist for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, working to restore and enhance wetlands, prairies, savannas, glades, karst systems, woodlands, riparian areas, streams and forests in a 22-county area in the Missouri Ozarks,” Edison said.
His next jobs were back in his home state.
Edison worked as a Large River Ecologist at the University of Illinois with his primary focus on the Wabash, Ohio, Kankakee and Iroquois rivers.
He then took a position with Illinois Department of Natural Resources as a Land Reclamation Specialist in Benton, working with Mines and Minerals.
Edison was in that job before moving to Loda and becoming the site superintendent at Kickapoo State Recreation Area.
His previous jobs helped prepare him for his current position.
Much of the area at Kickapoo and Middle Fork was land that was formerly mined.
“I am able to take this information (gained from past jobs) and use it at many of the areas within the park to understand what was done as the area was mined in the past and how to manage these areas into the future,” Edison said.
He oversees the park’s food plots, which are used to attract wildlife by using a preferential food source.
“We have a variety of food plots that we have planted (with beans, corn, sunflowers, clovers, wheat, milo, and brassicas) and will continue to plant into the future,” Edison said. “Some of these food types are preferred by different species of wildlife as well as targeted during different times of year.
“For example, doves love sunflowers and milo, while deer prefer clovers in the spring and fall and target corn in the cold of winter.”
Though all of the parks have hunting areas, Edison added, “We try to create these food plots within the no hunting area of the park to provide wildlife viewing opportunities, but we also put food plots in the hunting areas to aid the hunters in targeting wildlife.”
On a good day, from his office window, Edison said, “you can see up to 30 deer browsing.”
Part of his job is to educate the public on what is available at Kickapoo and the other recreation areas.
“Unfortunately, a lot of people drive over our property on I-74 and see the wetland area, but never drive through it,” Edison said.
“It’s free. It doesn’t cost to drive around and look at the deer. Hiking the trails is free. The mountain bike trails are free.”
What’s visible from the interstate, just west of Danville’s Martin Luther King exit, is Long Pond. Many of the trees visible in the water are Cypress trees.
“Long Pond was a formerly mined area and many of the spoil ridges are visible to people driving over the Pond,” Edison said.
Edison is also responsible for trying to eradicate invasive species throughout the parks.
It’s a list with plenty of entries, including Bush Honeysuckle, Sericea Lespedeza, Autumn Olive, Teasel, Garlic Mustard, Phragmites and Multiflora Rose.
According to Edison, it’s difficult to estimate how many acres need to be treated.
“At the beginning of my tenure, we easily have in the hundreds of acres and possibly in the thousands,” he said.
An effort is made to be environmentally friendly while controlling the unwanted species.
“We try to use natural methods to control the invasive and exotic species first, which includes prescribed fire where possible,” said Edison, who noted that more than 1,400 acres were burned last spring. “Some species require mechanical means for control (cutting and pulling of Garlic Mustard and Autumn Olive) while others need herbicide applications (Sericea Lespedeza and Phragmites).
“In all instances when we use herbicides, our application methods are the most effective in killing the targeted plant and have smallest impact on the surrounding ecosystem as possible. There’s a lot of work to be done to reduce how much there is.”
All staff that apply herbicides have their Illinois Pesticide Applicators License, he added.
Also on the agenda is a road project, “resurfacing and repairing roads and parking areas,” Edison said. “If we’re lucky, the work will start in the fall or winter (of 2019), but it might be next spring (2020).”
Edison reported increased harvests from hunters in the past year.
“Harry ‘Babe’ Woodyard had a harvest of 268 dove in 2017-18 and 544 dove in 2018-19,” he said.
Also prominent in the prescribed hunting areas are deer, squirrels, rabbits, turkeys and quails.
The expanse that Edison oversees ranges from the Harry ‘Babe’ Woodyard State Natural Area, southeast of Georgetown, to the 140-acre Herschel Workman Pheasant Habitat Area, located west of Rankin.
It’s a distance “as the crow flies,” Edison said, of 40 miles.
He looks at his work more as a passion than as a job.
“It’s really enjoyable,” Edison said.
