NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/1008599
Nebraska's Saline Wetlands • NEBRASKAland Magazine recognized this rich tallgrass prairie landscape and these salt basins as home. Perhaps the closest we can come is the writings of W.W. Cox, who described the Lincoln landscape of July 1861 this way: "As we viewed the land upon which now stands this great busy city, we had the exciting pleasure of seeing for the first time a large drove of beautiful antelope, cantering across the prairie about where the government square is (9th and O streets). We forded Salt Creek just by the junction of Oak Creek, and what a struggle we had in making our way through the tall sunflowers between the ford and the basin. There was something enchanting about the scene that met our eyes. The fresh breeze sweeping over the salt basins reminded us of the morning breezes at the ocean beach." If we were to take his same path today, we would start in the heart of downtown Lincoln, pass through the historic Haymarket District, by Pinnacle Bank Arena and Memorial Stadium, and probably hop on a bike trail to cross a bridge near the shoreline of Oak Lake and end up wandering the residential neighborhood of Capitol Beach, once the largest saline wetland in the basin before it was transformed and eventually cut in half by the Interstate. One can only imagine what W.W. Cox would think standing there now. He probably wouldn't believe his eyes. Jewels of Salt Creek Nebraska's saline wetlands are rare jewels found only within the Salt Creek watershed, a roughly 52-mile-long, 1,627 square mile drainage that encompasses much of Lancaster and Saunders counties, and flows generally southwest to northeast before merging with the Platte River near Ashland, just above Eugene T. Mahoney State Park. Contained within this watershed is a roughly 12-by-25-mile-long elliptical dish shaped by Salt Creek and its floodplain. It is where the city of Lincoln sits, and where roughly 20,000 acres of saline wetlands once were. Born in the swales and depressions within Salt Creek and its tributaries, the saline wetlands contain a diverse assemblage of habitats including saline marsh and meadows, salt flats, and spring and seep fed wetlands, bisected by streams and surrounded by tallgrass prairie. Their unique natural citizenry includes salt loving plants with names like sea blite, saltmarsh aster, and saltwort, the latter found nowhere else in the state. More than 250 species of migrating and resident birds have been documented since around 1900. In addition, thousands of species of insects and other invertebrates, many of them wired for a life among saline soils, can be found here – including one of the rarest creatures on earth, the Salt Creek tiger beetle. The saline wetlands' magical ingredient is groundwater that emerges at the surface through A series of time-lapse images capture Salt Creek tiger beetle habitat restoration in progress at the Marsh Wren Saline Wetland. Along Little Salt Creek, excavating and re-shaping a bank to access saline soils and allow for water inundation is the first step in the process. Over time and with a little luck, new communities of salt-tolerant wetland plants and animals will be established and can thrive, including the water- loving Salt Creek tiger beetle.