By Debra Desmoulin.
Please alert everyone to an environmentally-destructive project that Herb Kohler is trying to push through the Department of Natural Resources in the City of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Please help Mr. Kohler see the advantage of choosing a less ecologically-sensitive area for his golf course project.
Here are some of the potential negative impacts that this project would engender. There are more concerns, but I will start here:
- The Black River Forest, a 247-acre full-fledged wildlife habitat, complete with a thriving ecosystem, and a migratory flyway, owned by Herb Kohler, is threatened to be taken down and replaced with a sterile, chemically-treated golf course.
- Kohler is requesting publicly-funded acreage from the adjacent heavily-used and publicly funded Terry Andrea State Park on the south side of his forest, in order to share the entrance for access to his golf course, even though he wouldn’t have to compromise the State Park’s entrance, because Kohler has land that could be used to enter it on the north side of the proposed golf course.
- However, there is a quiet little community, in the Town of Wilson, adjacent to his forest on the north side, which will be disrupted by this golf course and the tournaments planned there, if Kohler’s project is allowed to proceed. In addition, Town residents’ wells will most likely run dry as Kohler’s high-capacity wells empty the aquifer, as happened to homes in the Town of Mosel for Kohler’s Whistling Straights golf course further north, but at least, the Whistling Straights land did not destroy a forest.
- This proposed golf course is right on Lake Michigan on the east side and the Black River on the west side. The Black River is already impaired and Lake Michigan has water quality issues as well. Lake Michigan provides drinking water for the entire Great Lakes Basin, which will suffer from all of the chemical run-off from the course.
- The Department of Natural Resources has already given Kohler the green light to dry up wetlands on his property and they are rewriting the Terry Andrea State Park Master Plan to legally give away tax-funded public parkland to Kohler, a private entity. The environment will suffer a great impact to: the air quality when all of those trees are felled; the water quality with chemical run-off; and the flora and fauna that live there, including at least a dozen endangered and threatened species. In addition, the Black River forest is a migratory flyway and has Native American mounds in several places. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2018/01/17/dnr-approves-wetland-permit-kohlers-golf-course-sheboygan-county-lake-michigan-shoreline/1042613001/
Please consider working on dissuading Herb Kohler from this environmentally-destructive project and even if he wants to follow through on it, please convince him to choose a different site or even a different project altogether before it’s too late. Golf courses are never a welcome environmental asset and Sheboygan County already has about 11 of them. Environmental activists, let’s defend the trees, plants, and animals that call the Black River Forest their home.
Below, aerial view of Black River Forest, photos of forest and of Lake Michigan beach and dunes next to it:
