TrailKeepers

Would you like to help make your local waterway healthier, cleaner, and safer for paddling? TrailKeepers volunteers do just that.

Learn how to become a “reach steward” who takes responsibility for a particular stretch of an adopted water trail, monitoring and reporting trail conditions and conducting on-the-water, bank, and access site clean-up.

Or maybe you’d prefer to manage an entire water trail, coordinating reach stewards and other volunteers as a “trail steward.” Trail stewards also arrange for the removal of larger obstructions and hazards with the local authorities or TrailKeepers in-stream maintainance crews.

TrailKeepers monitor and maintain nearly 350 river miles on seven water trails in nine counties in northereastern Illinois, including:

The North Branch of the Chicago River,
The Little Calumet River,
Salt Creek,
The Des Plaines River (from the Wisconsin border to McKinley Woods Forest Preserve),
The Fox River (in McHenry, Lake, Kane and Kendall Counties),
The DuPage River (West Branch and East Branch), and
The Kishwaukee River (in Boone & Winnebago Counties).

Volunteers can add water quality and habitat monitoring to their routine by taking the StreamLeaders class or partnering with a StreamLeader.

For more information about stream stewardship volunteer opportunities, please contact Openlands Associate Greenways Director Laura Barghusen via e-mail or by phone at 312-863-6253.

TrailKeepers is a joint project of Openlands and the Illinois Paddling Council (IPC). Project partners also include Lake County Forest Preserve District which partners with TrailKeepers on the Upper Des Plaines River through their volunteer program, and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County which incorporates the TrailKeepers In-Stream Maintenance Crew into their Preserve Keepers Corps stewardship program. Other partners include forest preserve and conservation districts throughout northeastern Illinois.