EDITORIAL: An alien intrusion in a place of dunes, wetlands and forests

It couldn’t happen here, not in Wisconsin, a state uncommonly blessed with natural resources and the ethic of protecting them, a state whose history of conservation was shaped by the environmental heroes John Muir, Aldo Leopold and Gaylord Nelson.

It couldn’t happen here, but it did.

A 247-acre private luxury golf course that would displace dunes, wetlands and forests on lakeshore land partially in a state park was approved by the state government and is now on the cusp of being built a few miles north of Ozaukee County.

The development is underpinned by a DNR agreement, made in 2018 when the agency was under the aegis of Gov. Scott Walker, to transfer ownership of a five-acre piece of Kohler-Andrae State Park to the Kohler Co. for the golf course, along with a two-acre easement to build a four-lane road and roundabout as the golf course entrance.

The easement land currently serves as the park’s only entrance, which would have to be moved.

Kohler Co. would give the state 10 acres of land adjacent to the park in return for the park land.

The park’s dunes and wetlands are elements of one of the most significant natural areas left along the shore of Lake Michigan. Its habitat supports endangered animal and plant species.

There could hardly be a more ill-suited juxtaposition than to place a golf course amid these precious natural features. The development would involve destroying wetlands and reconfiguring the landscape of the dune area with imported dirt and planting and chemically fertilizing non-native grasses. The park plan also requires cutting down about 120 acres of forest that has not been logged for a century and a half.

The environmental impact of the golf course was described in damning testimony in a five-day court hearing in Sheboygan in 2019.

A retired DNR wetlands expert testified that the Kohler golf course was the most environmentally harmful of any project she reviewed in her 37-year career at the state agency.

The DNR’s own impact statement, describing features of land in the affected area as “very rare” and “imperiled,” was introduced as evidence.

Administrative Law Judge Mark F. Kaiser determined that the golf course threatened to do significant environmental damage and declared the permit issued by the DNR to be invalid.

The decision was upheld on appeal. But in 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the nonprofit organization that sued to block the golf course, the Friends of Black River Forest, did not have legal standing to challenge the permit. And thus, with a 4-3 vote, the court cleared the way for the project, not based on the environmental evidence, but on a legal technicality.

On Nov. 23, in what may be a last resort, members of the Friends group and the Sierra Club presented Gov. Tony Evers with petitions signed by more than 25,000 people urging him to send the golf course permit back to the Natural Resources Board for review.

The proposed golf course would surely be a wonderful thing, when judged by golf standards, rather than nature’s. Kohler Co. and its billionaire chairman, the late Herbert Kohler, bankrolled two courses in Sheboygan, Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits, that are nationally renowned, and a third 18-hole course would no doubt be equally impressive, taking full advantage of its spectacular lakeshore setting to justify breathtaking green fees. The course would generate economic activity that would benefit the area.

The worthiness of the project, however, should be judged by the answer to this question:

How does it benefit society to trade precious elements of untouched nature for a vanity project justified more by the fame and bragging rights that would come with it than by need?