Oak savannas in Milwaukee County

Indian Community School, Franklin, WI

Remnants of once-vast ecosystem linger on public and private properties

The big trees lean this way and that like preadolescents at a middle school dance who want to be seen together but aren’t quite ready to touch. The small stand—little over half a dozen oaks—is defined as much by the space around the trees as by the substantial bulk of their individual trunks. It is a classic example of an ecosystem known as oak savanna—or, I must hasten to add, what is left of one.

Stahl-Conrad Homestead, Hales Corners, WI

An undisturbed oak savanna is primarily grassland dotted with oaks. This remarkably diverse ecosystem once stretched in a wide belt from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, creating a transition between the tallgrass prairie to the west and the dense broadleaf forest to the east. Unfortunately, of the 50 million acres that existed prior to European settlement little remains, almost none of it undisturbed....

This story is published at Milwaukee Magazine. Click here to continue reading. 

Wauwatosa committee moves to protect County Grounds

Sunset, County Grounds Park

Vote is a victory for opponents of controversial master plan

A Wauwatosa Common Council committee voted unanimously Tuesday night to put on hold the controversial master plan for what is being called the Life Sciences District.

“We have been listening,” Kathleen Causier, Chair of the council’s Community Affairs Committee, told the packed room in the council chambers. The size of the audience for a committee meeting indicated once again the amount of concern and attention being paid to this issue by the community. The outcome included a provision that seemed to surprise nearly everyone in attendance.

During the public comment period before the committee deliberations the contentiousness that had characterized so many previous meetings simmered but never boiled over. The idea of putting the master planning process on hold was itself uncontroversial. Speaker after speaker rose to agree with it. Despite the narrow focus of the issue at hand, many couldn’t resist the opportunity to reiterate their opposition to elements of the plan itself.

When it came time for the committee to deliberate, Ald. Cheryl Berdan made the motion, which was to put the planning process on hold until such time as the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and Milwaukee County both completed environmental impact assessments of County Grounds Park and the non-park county land commonly known as “Sanctuary Woods.” Initially there was little opposition and the decision seemed a foregone conclusion.

Autumn, Wil-O-Way Woods, DNR State Forest, County Grounds

Then alderman Jason Wilke proposed what he considered a “friendly amendment” that add new protections to not only the two parcels stipulated in the original motion but also to the Wil-O-Way Woods property north of Swan Boulevard. This proposal was met with some confusion and Berdan refused to accept the “friendly amendment” to her motion. Wilke then moved to amend the motion without the “friendly” designation, which led to a lively discussion about the intent and feasibility of adding the protection.

The public is clearly disturbed by the part of the plan that involves these three parcels, Wilke explained, and protecting them would serve to reassure people and allow the rest of the plan to move forward. This clarification seemed to satisfy the committee members. The audience listened with rapt attention as nearly every member of the committee expressed agreement in principle with the intent to protect the land. Causier summed up the sentiments by saying “none of us want to see anything going in there,” referring to development on the three parcels.

The final hurdle to acceptance was a consideration of the City’s role in providing permanent protection. City attorney Alan Kesner explained that permanent protection required more than zoning, which is within the purview of the city. A conservation easement or other instrument of protection would require consent of the landowners—Milwaukee County and the State of Wisconsin. While acknowledging the possibility of resistance, in the end the committee voted unanimously to include Wilke’s amendment to do “whatever it takes to preserve in perpetuity” the three parcels.

It was a stunning development in the now yearlong controversy over the Life Sciences District Master Plan and the committee’s decision was met with loud applause from the audience.

Spring, Sanctuary Woods, County Grounds

The decision means that the scheduled May 15 meeting of the Plan Commission and others will be canceled or postponed until the conditions of last night’s decision have been met. If they are not met, we can expect to hear this issue come up again sometime in the future. However, today we can thank the Community Affairs Committee for their vote to save the County Grounds.

Attention now turns to Milwaukee County, where the decision to act on the Community Affairs Committee decision rests. Those concerned with actually saving the County Grounds will want to make their feelings known to County Executive Chris Abele and the County Board.

There is a meeting of the County Board Committee on Parks, Energy and the Environment Tuesday, May 16 at 9:00 a.m. at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, 901 N. 9^th Street, room 201. 

As always, you can see more photos of Sanctuary Woods and the rest of the County Grounds on Flickr.

Hiking Havenwoods with Brew City Safari

Havenwoods, despite its designation as a State Forest, is largely prairie. On Saturday, when I joined up with Brew City Safari for the second week in a row, the sky was gloomy and the prairie mostly dull shades of umber. But the temperature was perfect and we had a lovely walk. I took a few photos, as is my habit, and even managed to find a few spots of color here and there.

At about our halfway point we came to a boardwalk that led us out over a wetland and pond.

There we were joined by Beth, one of the State Forest rangers. She had caught a number of small creatures, such as damselfly larvae.

They were placed into lab magnifiers so that we could observe their forms and movements.

The youngest member of our party grabbed one of the nets and promptly caught a healthy-sized tadpole, held here by Beth.

I also learned from Beth that this is called "panic grass" because of the way the stems diverge, kind of like a grassy fireworks display.

There are actually a few woodland areas in the state forest.

Brew City Safari has yet another hike scheduled for October 22 and then one in November. For more information go to their website.

A study in contrast: Joliet Arsenal and the Tallgrass Prairie

Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie was established in 1996 on 19,000 acres of the Joliet Arsenal, which once manufactured munitions for the army. It was the first national tallgrass prairie in the U.S. It is also the southwestern-most corner of Chicago’s Millennium Reserve, which is being developed as the nation’s largest network of urban parklands and natural areas.

Restoration of the native prairie landscape is a long-term project. On a recent visit in early spring I found evidence of this effort as well as obvious remains of its former life as a military installation. Here is my photo essay.

To see a previous photo essay on the Millennium Reserve click here.

Reconsidering Aldo Leopold in the Kettle Moraine

One of my favorite passages from Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac is from a story called “Great Possessions:” He says, “…at daybreak I am the sole owner of all the acres I can walk over. It is not only boundaries that disappear, but also the thought of being bounded.” How often in my explorations of the urban wilderness I have tried to make those boundaries disappear! Leopold left his home in Madison and made his way to his hobby farm in rural Sand County in order to get that experience. Now and then I too feel the need to leave the city for more unbounded spaces.

Lynn and I stayed in a delightful B&B in Eagle. It was situated on 20 acres that the owners had put into conservation easement. 20 acres sounded like plenty of room to roam in until I’d spent the 15 minutes it took to reach the neighbor’s boundary. Like Leopold I could have walked right through, but I’d be walking across the lawns and roads of an exurban subdivision instead of farms. I drove off to the state park.

The sky was just beginning to pale as I pulled into the Ice Age Trail lot off Highway 67. I considered skipping the required day pass. At this hour no ranger was likely to come by and I didn’t relish taking off my gloves to fill out the form. Besides, I reasoned with myself, my other car has an annual parks sticker. My arguments didn’t overrule my sense of obligation – or perhaps that nagging fear of getting caught. Some of the boundaries we experience are the ones we carry around inside. I used the stubby pencil provided and stuffed $7 into the too-small envelope – why they don’t have an envelope large enough for the bills they are intended to hold?! And, yes, my fingers ended up feeling like icicles. My toes were already cold, too, from standing there.

Even at this early hour on a Saturday, cars went by now and then. The Ice Age Trail led off parallel to the road. There was another obviously well used but unmarked trail heading off away from the road and toward the Scuppernong River. It was a relatively “blank spot on the map,” to use another Leopold expression, and therefore more appealing.

I needed a brisk walk to get blood flowing to my extremities but numerous footprints had frozen into the packed snow making it both uneven and slippery. I also had to dodge dog turds melting their way towards the ground. The dog walkers turned back at the flooded prairie where the trail became a sheet of ice thin enough to fracture with every step. In places I broke through.

Then a creek crossed the trail. Probably no more than a trickle in summer, it was swollen with snowmelt. I unwisely tried to position myself for a shot of it and ended up with icy water in one of my boots. I briefly considered aborting my hike – I still hadn’t warmed up. But also the sun still hadn’t risen and I had taken only that one unlucky photograph. I plunged through the stream and on down the now less travelled path.

By the time I reached the river I was warm, the sun was just breaking over the ridge to the east, and the prairie grasses lit up like fire. I was able to make a few satisfying photographs, but the greatest reward was more ephemeral. I had gone far enough from the road to hear…nothing. No animals rustling the grass; no birds calling; no wind in the trees. Nothing at all, except the ringing in my ears – perhaps the accumulated residue from the urban cacophony I had left behind.

After a while a small plane interrupted the peaceful silence. Its distant transect of the sky reminded me of the one mosquito that gets inside a tent, small but impossible to ignore, knowing what it will do as soon as I fall asleep. I was reminded not to be asleep to my own impact upon the earth. 

The plane was followed by a long line of geese, honking with undecipherable urgency. In “March” Leopold writes, “One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is spring.” Although we had a thaw last week, it is February yet and I didn’t need this week’s snow to remind me it is not spring. Those geese, contrary to instinct, likely have grown accustomed to surviving through the winter in Wisconsin, surviving off the detritus – or voluntary largesse – of a society that likewise finds itself untethered to the seasons.

I walked back, warmed and thoughtful, observing patterns and discovering curiosities encased in the ice that I’d rushed across before. Where I’d broken through a new sheet of ice had already healed over the wound. It broke more easily in its weakened state. For three hours I had walked over many acres, across the unbounded spaces of the park, and was thankful for the opportunity. Like Leopold I consider land stewardship a moral imperative. In a time of ever dwindling natural areas, it is also that much more important for economic sustainability as well as psychological health. But the ice has gotten very thin. We must tread more lightly than ever.

To see more images from my excursion in the Kettle Moraine, go to my flickr page.