Can proposed Kohler golf course really protect historic sites?

Milwaukee's Lake Park, laid out by the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted who also created New York City's Central Park, takes has taken note of its one surviving native burial mound for more than 107 years: 

Lake Park is located on land the known history of which stretches back into antiquity. A prehistoric Indian Mound reminds today’s park visitor of the original inhabitants of the area. Although we do not know who built this mound, it is https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/EIA/documents/Kohler/KohlerFinalEISpublicNHC.pdf believed to have been peoples of the Mid-Woodland Culture (300BC-400AD), primarily hunter-gatherers who constructed mounds as burial or ceremonial centers. Originally one of a series of conical mounds that were later destroyed (some even in the development of the park), this single mound is the last known remaining within the city of Milwaukee. In 1910, the Wisconsin Archaeological Society placed a historic plaque on the mound in order to ensure its preservation.

Wisconsin was the center of this long-ago mound-building culture and continues to be a center of its study. 

When I'm walking the paths and trails in Lake Park, I like to stop at the surviving mound; a few quiet moments there lets me imagine life and humanity in our area centuries ago and try and understand on whose land and footsteps I'm walking.

I wonder if the Kohler company, should it get to build its proposed golf course on a 247-acre, densely-forested, wetland-and-artifact-rich nature preserve south of Sheboygan almost twice the size of Lake Park - - and given the extent of the tree-cutting, wetland-filling and extensive development it wants to carry out there - - can successfully keep its commitments to preserve a burial mound there.

Tall order? You bet. 

While the project's website pledging in its environmental section that - - :

Kohler Co. will leave the known Indian burial mounds completely undisturbed..." 

- - the recently-released Wisconsin DNR environmental impact statement about the project notes on pages 63-64 says about Indian mounds that "the largest of these sites...extends over most of the property..."

5.2.9 Archeological and Historic Resources

...A review of information complied by the Wisconsin Historical Society indicates that seven (7) prehistoric archaeological sites, including one burial mound group, have been identified as co-incident with the property. The largest of these sites (SB-0173, which extends over most of the property) includes both prehistoric (predominant) and historic (much more limited) habitation components, each of which has been evaluated as potentially eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. Of note, inclusion on the NRHP does not preclude development. 

Burial mounds and other burial sites are provided with a very substantial measure of protection under provision of WI Statutes. Note further that the location of one reported site (SB-0174, a cache of “net sinkers” first reported in 1902) is unknown. The USACE [US Army Corps of Engineers] is the lead agency for addressing potential impacts to cultural resources and is coordinating the formal review process with the State Historical Society. 

(Sidebar: there have been recent efforts to reduce those same, "very substantive measure of protection," as the DNR puts.)

The EIS also explains repeatedly how extensive will be the project's environmental destruction and what it calls "changed aesthetics" will be, including these summary paragraphs on page 70.

6.1 Summary of Adverse Impacts That Cannot Be Avoided

The site’s nearly 100% forested canopy would be reduced by nearly half...

Approximately 3.7 acres of wetland would be lost due to filling including impacts to approximately 1.36 acres of Great Lakes ridge and swale wetlands, a wetland type that is considered “imperiled” in Wisconsin.

Additional wetland impacts resulting from alterations to wetland hydrology and the influence of increased nutrients could change the wetland type and allow encroachment of invasive species.

Reduction of the forest to 50 percent cover would result in a substantial reduction of available migratory bird stopover habitat on the Kohler Property. Interior forest bird nesting habitat is likely present within and adjacent to the Project boundary and would essentially be eliminated.

My point is that protecting those mound and archeological sites for the property from damage and destruction during two years of bulldozing for tree-cutting and wetland filling, then during and after construction of an 18-hole golf course, a 5.7 irrigation pond, a 22,000-foot multi-story clubhouse, a driving range and a big parking lot  - - and then during years and years of golfers chasing after errant shots and visitors walking the grounds - - is going to take a helluva lot of caution and planning and follow through.

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: