I hate doing this, but I have too.
(sorry Joel)
The Milwaukee river valley and the County grounds are both dramatically more ecologically valuable habitat than Downer woods. The Milwaukee river is a migratory corrider and every spring and autumn, innumerable migratory birds utilize this river to catch food (i.e. mosquitoes), rest and seek cover from birds of prey.
Before UWM buldozed the area across the river from Estabrook park to build a parking lot (how intellectual: park = parking lot, gees I wish everyone were this intelligent) there was a fairly high quality wetland. In winter there was always a male Goldeneye on the river along with a pair of Hooded Mergansers, which may actually have been there year round (they would dive and hide under the bank if you didn't crawl to the edge of the ridge on your belly). There was always a good sized flock of Tree Sparrows, and some sort of bird in the cat tails I never could identify, as they were super skittish and I couldn't get close enough, even with 10 power binoculars to get a good look at them.
In spring some of the interesting sightings of birds included a pair of hooded warblers and a yellow chat. In addition to a flock of the endangered Kirtland's warblers -that same year a flock of nesting Kirtland's warblers showed up in the Michigan Upper Penninsula. It got a lot of people very excited. That summer, they started buldozing to make the parking lot, the following year, there were no more Kirtland's in the UP (I did see a few that autumn in Estabrook park passing through on the way back). About March, previous, that year, a Bald Eagle was actually seen in a tree overlooking Capital and Humboldt, not 50 yards from the intersection - needless to say, I lost control of my car, but I didn't hit anything... I did get pulled over though, but the Police Detectives were just as interested in the Eagle as me and let me go ... not that I did.
In summer there were nesting bluebirds, yellow warblers and a ton of butterflies. There were also a lot of native marshland plant species including Foxtail sedge, Smoothstem bullrush and (I forgot). The spring that they did the buldozing, I scouted out the ponds and found some tadpoles. I took my 6 year old there that year to help catch some, only to discover, on the 3rd of July, that the entire area had been buldozed. We managed to find a tire track with thousands of the tadpoles in it and braved the mosquitoes to catch about 600 of them. We raised them in a fishtank and let them go all over this side of town, wherever there was habitat.
What is really interesting about all this is that I used to run, before I started walking of course, and I used to follow the path along the river that went past this area. It went close by the broadcast towers. I did this for several years. One year, I noticed a bunch of steel drums in a drum farm, inside of a fenced in area. Being a chemist, I notice drums, and these were all different and none were clearly labeled... whatever. These drums sat in this fenced in area for several months and rusted pretty good. Then, one day I went running through and all the same drums (with the same bizzare markings) were outside of the drum farm and scattered along the river bank, some appeared even to have been partially buried in the dirt, and one or two were partly in the river. Ookaay.
Well, the excuse Bubble gum used to claim their justification for a parking lot was that there had been a dump under that field across from Estabrook park and that it was leaking. Citing the barrels that had "floated" up from deep in the earth. They claimed that it was a win - win situation if they built a parking lot and sealed up the surface to rainwater penetration. In fact, the DNR stooge showed me a big pile of sand and told me it was a special type of cement that would seal the ground to water penetration. Interestingly, shortly after that, while the pile of sand was still there, it rained a lot, feeling sad for them, I hiked over there through the woods only to discover that the sand was perfectly fine, and hadn't turned into special concrete.
Well, I had a connection to the late Frank Zeidler, so I called him up to ask him about the dump, which was in operation when he was Mayor. He told me that there were never any barrels in the dump and that everything in there had been glassified before dumping, so there wouldn't be any leaching concerns, being next to a river n all. The dump was closed and sealed while he was still Mayor, and he confirmed that nothing hazardous had ever been put in there. I could have guessed.
The people of Milwaukee are such saps, UWM has been conspiring with a number of developers to get stuff started. Once the good folks who show up for public hearings learn that UWM is involved, everyone caves, believing that the Ivory tower is a place of reason and feel goodism. AS IF! It is a hard sell marketing scheme and Bubble gum is probably getting kickbacks. While there may be good professors and intelligent people working as teachers for UWM, that doesn't mean that is who runs the place or who makes their development decisions.
Wy exactly is the foreign invasive choked Downer woods so much more valuable greenspace than the Milwaukee Rivershed or the County Grounds, which the actual public has(d) access to? In fact, my wife took some courses at UWM, where they were supposed to look for birds and another one for trees, there were no birds in the Downer woods and the tree class went to Lake Park instead. There are always birds along the river. I intend to go out January 1 to look at Robins - its my contempt for resentment. There is some species of Flycatcher in there with them this year too.
The people who live around Bubble gum have complained about students parking there for decades, Downer Woods could easily have been buldozed for both a parkinglot and extra dorm space. If nature is so important, a manageable remnant could easily be preserved as well. There are no deep woods species in there, but there is an excellent weed museum. How is that going to stand up to the new DNR invasive species rules?
The county grounds is a substantial Monarch migratory stop, and there are not many of those left to be found. In addition, there are also many species of butterfly that are not found just anywhere in the area, and it has a lot to do with the diverse plant community living there. I know lets buldoze this to build schools where we can learn about the functions of the natural world. Ya know what, we just might.
Peace + Love = Intelligence
