Save Kohler Andrae State Park

October 25, 2017 News Update

Friends of the Black River Forest has launched our online store at savekohlerandrae.com or click here

Our incredibly soft T-shirts, Four Seasons Mandala art, and our signature wine glasses are available.  We plan to expand our items to donated art. Contact friendsbrf@hotmail.com to find out how to donate.

This give-away of Kohler Andrae State Park land is important to every lover of Wisconsin State Parks. Follow us on Facebook to read about the DNR plan to open our parks to motorcycles and ATV's. Please share this newsletter far and wide.

The DNR is working to amend the Kohler Andrae State Park Master Plan so that the Kohler Company can use and impact up to 20 acres of our park land for its proposed golf course adjacent to the park on the shore of Lake Michigan. It is also working with the National Park Service to allow lands purchased with federal funds for public use to be converted to private use for Kohler. If these two giveaways are approved, all Wisconsin State Park public land is open to corporate use for private profit.

FBRF will publish the information on the October  DNR public hearing on the proposed amendment. It is critical that there is public outcry on this proposal. 

 

The Kohler Company has requested to reconstruct the entrance to Kohler Andrae State Park with a rotary, build a road through the Park to their property, and build 3 maintenance buildings with a parking lot totaling almost 30,000 sq. ft., all on state land. The Company has its own land to use for an entry but chooses state land instead.

Saturday, September 23, Jim Buchholz, 26 year superintendent of KASP, led a group organized by the Fox Valley Sierra Group through the lands Kohler has requested to reconstruct. Jim's photos are below. "I based my photo locations on their development map and the many survey markers and flagging I found in this area of the park. I thought it might be helpful to show what this "unused" and "unimportant" area of the park looks like to those who have never actually seen it. It seems like many of those in favor of Kohler bulldozing this area flat and building a massive shop facility and huge parking lots seem to think of the area as an old dump site or possibly an abandoned corn field or whatever. In reality the entire area is an extension of the State Natural Area across the road and is comprised of open and wood sand dune formations complete with rare vegetation and active habitat for the areas wildlife. In the short time I walked the area I saw a couple deer, a hen turkey with 8 or 9 young chicks, a Cooper's hawk, a pileated woodpecker, a bluebird and a fox den just to name a few." 

 

Please note: The land Kohler wants for the maintenance buildings, the road to his course, a construction entrance, and rotary was purchased with Land and Water Conservation Act funds for the recreational use of the public. It was not donated by the Kohler family.

Kohler Andrae State Park is one of the most visited in the state. Kohler land and the park are part of a coastal Wetland Gems Area  designated by the Wisconsin Wetlands Association. The DNR is considering allowing the Kohler Company to pay a fee

to destroy globally significant ridge and swale wetlands on their property because they cannot be mitigated elswwhere. (created elsewhere to swap for what is destroyed ). Thousands of years of hydrologic action created this dune and swale system. 

Kohler was asked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop activity on their land while the archaeological  report was being studied. Kohler staff drove atv's over the dune complexes in preparation for Pete Dyes's visit, shortly after the Corps's request.

Please sign our petition to the DNR and Natural Resources Board

 

change.org/p/wisconsin-department-of-natural-resources-the-wisconsin-dnr-must-deny-kohler-company-the-use-of-public-state-lands-for-their-private-profit-the-role-of-the-wdnr-is-to-protect-the-environment-not-work-for-developers?recruiter=44475242&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=138998

We will update you on the Town of Wilson vs. City of Sheboygan as soon as we hear anything on a possible injunction decision by the judge.

P.O Box 804, Sheboygan WI 53082

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