Mr. Nawrot is a Senior Scientist in the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory. Mr. Nawrot's research interests include wildlife habitat restoration on mined lands including wetlands and native warm season grasses. Recent wetland restoration projects in the Midwest have received reclamation awards from the U.S. Department of the Interior and state natural resource agencies. The Laboratory's mined land restoration program staff and students have worked with state and federal agencies and the mining industry since 1952 to demonstrate the wildlife habitat opportunities of reclaimed mine lands. During the past 24 years, Mr. Nawrot's research has included statewide inventories of mined lands; aquatic and terrestrial habitat restoration practices; threatened and endangered species evaluations; mine drainage treatment and abatement with emergent wetlands; and, wetland delineation and mitigation.
Reclamation has been recognized as an excellent opportunity for fish and wildlife habitat since 1952 when our Lab’s founder, Dr. W. D. Klimstra, state and federal natural resource agencies, the Midwest coal industry, and private sportsmen’s groups formed a partnership to support applied research and management practices for reclaimed mined lands. Dr. Klimstra’s pioneering efforts at our Pyatt’s Research area, resulted in the establishment of Pyramid State Park, Illinois’ first fish and wildlife area on a reclaimed mine site. Since 1974, I have applied these early reclamation practices and principles of restoration ecology on both mined and unmined upland and wetland habitats. Warm season grass and wetland habitat establishment without the use of soil cover on coal tailings has been demonstrated for more than 25 years throughout the Midwest and is accepted by the USDI - OSMRE as a beneficial wildlife reclamation alternative. Our mined land graduate student research during the past 30 years has addressed succession, land use change, stream restoration, wetland treatment of mine drainage, mine impoundment biogeochemistry and aquatic plant community ecology, soil and overburden invertebrate ecology; and, furbearer, waterfowl, wading bird, shorebird, forest and grassland avifauna, and raptor utilization of reclaimed habitats.
Current reclamation research is addressing hydroperiod change on a 30-year old mine subsidence wetland plant community and continued research demonstrations of passive in-situ alkaline recharge trenches for acid mine drainage abatement.
Phone: (618) 453-6945
Fax: (618) 453-6944