Staffers from the state’s Department of Natural Resources say that approval was granted for the new 18-hole golf course along the Lake Michigan shore despite assessments that the project did not meet environmental standards and could harm sensitive wetlands. Kohler has promised to remediate any affected wetlands for the project that is estimated to bring nearly $21 million a year in economic activity, create 227 permanent jobs and generate $1.1 million in annual tax revenue.
A report by the Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism (WCFIJ) included a contention by a staff member of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that a permit for a new golf course development by the Kohler Co. was granted despite concerns raised about the environmental impact of the project.
Pat Trochlell, a wetland ecologist who retired in January after 37 years with the DNR, told the WCFIJ that she surveyed the 247-acre site that is owned by the Kohler Co. adjacent to Kohler-Andrae State Park, and on which the company is proposing to build a public 18-hole golf course, three times as part of the permitting process.
Those studies, Trochlell said, led to a final environmental impact statement for the project from the DNR that was released at the beginning of 2018 January. The statement expressed concerns that about 1.5 acres of “very rare” and “imperiled” wetlands that are critical to amphibian nesting would be filled to build the golf course, and other sensitive areas would experience “secondary impacts” from the project.
Trochlell told the WCFIJ that the DNR completed its environmental assessment before seeing detailed plans from Kohler — backward of the normal process. She assumed Kohler’s request for a wetland permit, required to build the golf course, would never be granted.
But the agency approved the permit for the project, which would also require removal of up to 120 acres of forest. Trochlell told the WCFIJ that she believes the loss of trees, installation of fertilized turf and other changes would negatively affect the area’s dunes and wetlands.
While Trochlell said she determined the project did not meet state standards, she said her bosses told her the permit should be approved no matter what.
“I was in a meeting with managers . and I asked the question of what would happen if we wouldn’t sign off on these permits, and I was told that if we didn’t sign off on these permits, we would be moved to another job or fired—I think that’s how I interpreted it,” Trochlell recalled.
Gov. Scott Walker’s office directed questions from the WCFIJ about the Kohler project to the DNR. The department declined a request for an interview, citing ongoing litigation, which has stalled the project. DNR spokesman Jim Dick said the agency “makes permit application decisions based on law and sound science.”
Jim Buchholz, who worked for the DNR for more than 36 years, including 28 years as Kohler-Andrae’s park superintendent, said in testimony in June that the approval allows “destruction of rare, globally significant
In the 1930s, the WCFIJ reported, Kohler Co. purchased 468 acres of land along Lake Michigan in Sheboygan County, Wis. and donated nearly half to what is now the Kohler-Andrae State Park. The rest of the land is now slated to be the golf course.
The facility will include an irrigation pond, golf cart paths, a clubhouse of up to 16,000 square feet, a 22,000-sq.-ft. maintenance building and an entry road.
“We remain committed to implementing a plan that will avoid, minimize and mitigate potential impacts from the public golf course,” Dirk Willis, Kohler’s Group Director of Golf, said in a statement.
The company promises to remediate destroyed wetlands through programs that allow it to sponsor the restoration or creation of wetlands elsewhere, the WCFIJ reported.
In addition, “All Lake Michigan near-shore wetland resources are being avoided, including interdunal wetlands,” the company said in its 2017 permit application.
Kohler hopes the project will become one of the world’s top golf courses, the WCFIJ reported. A consultant hired by Kohler projects the course would bring nearly $21 million a year in economic activity to Sheboygan County, create 227 permanent jobs and generate $1.1 million in annual tax revenue.
To pave the way for the project, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board approved a swap of 4.6 acres of state parkland and a nearly 2-acre easement for 9.5 acres of Kohler property with a house and several storage buildings.
Buchholz told the WCFIJ that he believes the swap of state park land creates a bad precedent. In the past, “Nobody would ever have considered giving that land away, but times have changed,” he said. “Things have changed politically. Things have changed a lot.”
Trochlell told the WCFIJ that under the Kohler Co. plan, she believed the rare wetlands will become overrun by invasive species, and standing water will be polluted by the nutrients from fertilizer.
“Our whole ecosystem is based upon having species that interact with each other. When you lose one part of that, we don’t know how it’s going to affect all the other parts,” she said.
An archaeological study of the Kohler Co. property found over 25,000 historic and prehistoric artifacts, including stone tools and ceramics dating back more than 3,000 years, the WCFIJ reported. In addition, a group of Native American burial mounds exists on the site; Kohler says they will not be disturbed.
Lawsuits filed against the DNR by the environmental nonprofit, Friends of the Black River Forest, have challenged both the granting of the wetland permit and the swap of state land.
George Meyer, who served as DNR secretary from 1993 to 2001 and now leads the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation, told the WCFIJ that the Kohler decision sends “a signal to staff that their decision could be overridden at any time depending on who the applicant is and what kind of political connections they have.”
Randy Demaster, a seasonal landscaper for Kohler who has helped to build several other Kohler golf courses, told the WCFIJ that he believes most people in the area support the project, in part because of the tax revenue it would bring in. And he expects the course to have little-to-no negative environmental impacts.
“They [Kohler] are very concerned and conscientious about the environment,” Demaster said. “That’s why they are trying to keep everything in place as much as possible and work around it.”