Montgomery Seeks Stewards for Naturalized Basins

The is hoping to enlist some volunteers who will help them maintain naturalized basins in nine neighborhoods.

As floated at a seminar last week by the village and contractor Pizzo and Associates, the pond stewardship program would be designed for people with an interest in native plants, people who would have an active role in planting and maintaining the natural areas Pizzo oversees.

That includes 15 basins in nine subdivisions – five in Montgomery Crossing, two in Foxmoor, two in Fairfield Way, and one each in Arbor Ridge, Balmorea, Blackberry Crossing, Fieldstone Place, Marquis Pointe/Ogden Hill, and Orchard Prairie North. Pizzo also maintains three village-owned basins, on Cornell Street, Civic Center Drive and Orchard Road.

The Leland-based Pizzo and Associates has been replanting and maintaining these basins since 2008. Last week, about 35 people turned up to the police station for a free seminar on their work, entitied “Birds, Butterflies and People.” Andy Stahr, project manager for Pizzo, explained that naturalized basins help improve water quality, provide a better habitat for wildlife, and just plain look better.

Stahr said Pizzo’s work takes “specialized knowledge, much more plant knowledge” than your typical landscaping. The company uses seeds and plugs to spread native grasses and plants, and targeted herbicides to rid the basins of weeds. They also use controlled burns to renew the grasses periodically.

Stahr showed several before and after pictures of the Montgomery basins, which seemed to impress the seminar attendees. Some of the residents came with their own concerns, including the need for catch-and-release signs for fishers. Mike Pubentz, the village’s head of public works, said village leaders may create a fish management program to deal with those issues.

Pizzo’s original three-year contract from 2008 found them maintaining 14 of those basins, and though the original planting was costly, now that the basins are grown out, the price of managing them has gone down significantly, Stahr said. In March, the Village Board extended Pizzo’s contract for one year, and brought four more basins—the ones in Balmorea, Foxmoor, Marquis Pointe/Ogden Hill, and Orchard Prairie North—under the company’s care.

For this work, they will be paid a base rate of $181,210, with an optional array of services available for an additional $267,000. For the subdivisions, that money comes out of special service area taxes, levied on homeowners.

Pubentz said the village has been working to keep those assessments down. But those SSAs are part of the reason, Stahr said, the stewardship program was proposed.

“You as residents, you pay into the SSA, and you see the money going out, but you’re not sure what’s happening,” he said. “We’d like to find someone within each neighborhood that can email concerns from that neighborhood.”

If you are interested in becoming a steward, call Pubentz at 630-896-9241.