FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Short answers are in black. A more detailed response appears in red.
1. Isn't this really just a recent "man-made" wetland?
Despite efforts of highway proponents to characterize the wetland as a recent creation of Baker University biologists, the truth is that this place is the surviving remnant of a very ancient prairie wetland.
The Wakarusa (a.k.a. Haskell-Baker) Wetland is a remnant of the Wakarusa Bottoms, an area of approximately 18,000 acres of prairie wetland formed by the retreat of the first glacial epoch to reach into Kansas, between 300,000 and 600,000 years ago. For at least 10,000 years, this wetland was a special gathering place for the human inhabitants of this region.
A substantial part of the wetland was briefly transformed into very marginal farmland, which flooded regularly. An ineffective dike and tile drainage system was finally completed by 1920. Haskell officials gave up on this expensive futile effort to tame the swamp about a decade later, during the dust bowl and depression era. Some land continued to be leased for stock grazing and haying. Some crops were again planted after Clinton Dam was constructed in the 1970s and before Baker's restoration of the wetland got fully under way.
For an excellent account of wetland drainage efforts in this region, and the importance of wetlands in Native American cultures, see Wetlands of the American Midwest: A Historical Geography of Changing Attitudes, by Hugh Prince, University of Chicago, 1997.
The primary "Haskell farm" was not in the wetland, but located much nearer the dorms and classrooms. The farm is important for its part in the child labor exploitation aspects of Haskell's early history. This wetland, on the other hand, is crucial to the larger story of how Indian students at the boarding schools resisted authorities determined to eradicate their cultures and languages.
A substantial part of the wetland was briefly transformed into very marginal farmland, which flooded regularly. An ineffective dike and tile drainage system was finally completed by 1920. Haskell officials gave up on this expensive futile effort to tame the swamp about a decade later, during the dust bowl and depression era. Some land continued to be leased for stock grazing and haying. Some crops were again planted after Clinton Dam was constructed in the 1970s and before Baker's restoration of the wetland got fully under way.
For an excellent account of wetland drainage efforts in this region, and the importance of wetlands in Native American cultures, see Wetlands of the American Midwest: A Historical Geography of Changing Attitudes, by Hugh Prince, University of Chicago, 1997.
The primary "Haskell farm" was not in the wetland, but located much nearer the dorms and classrooms. The farm is important for its part in the child labor exploitation aspects of Haskell's early history. This wetland, on the other hand, is crucial to the larger story of how Indian students at the boarding schools resisted authorities determined to eradicate their cultures and languages.
2. Haven't archaeologists already determined that there are no Indian graves in the Haskell-Baker Wetland?
Haskell alumni have stated unequivocally that there are former students buried in the wetlands. The issue is far more complicated than proponents of the trafficway have led the public to believe. The highly controversial ground penetrating radar (GPR) study done for KDOT proved absolutely nothing. It was another very expensive PR gimmick.
The study that you may have read about in the paper is very misleading. The unique ground penetrating RADAR (GPR) equipment that consultant Larry Conyers uses is a device that few experts in this remote sensing sub-field would give the time of day. GPR technology is not a good match in wet soils, where problems with distortion and false data readings are well documented. Conyers did not fly over the wetland to image the entire area as so many presume when they hear "ground penetrating radar". Actually, two of his grad students dragged a cable across an undisclosed small sampling of the surface. KDOT refused to reveal just where the consultants went for their late winter wetland transects, but because much of the 32nd Street route is submerged, it is doubtful that these young assistants trekked through half-frozen gumbo with their cumbersome equipment.
One could write a long dissertation on all the reasons why this is the biggest charade KDOT attorney Mike Rees pulled in his entire tenure as the SLT front man. There was no documentation of the process or particulars included in the Corps final EIS. Further, Conyers never claimed, as KDOT did for the accommodating local press, that the study had concluded that no graves are present in the entire wetland. He merely reported that there were none found in his brief limited sampling. For this he went back to Colorado with a fat check from KDOT.
There were two ways this very controversial consultant could have easily demonstrated that his equipment is really reliable in the areas where he dragged the cable. First, there are at least 50 documented graves of Douglas County paupers who were laid to rest on the south bank of the Wakarusa, just west of the Haskell Avenue Bridge. There are no surface traces of these graves, but there is an excellent paper trail. We are certain these poor-farm residents were buried on this site.
Secondly, there are burials in the Haskell Cemetery (both inside and outside the modern fenced area) reported in late 19th century newspapers and from first and second hand accounts, that are not marked there today. Larry Conyers declined to "calibrate" his controversial device in either of these nearby places. Part of the reason the graves just south of the river are no longer visible, by the way, is that the local farmers allowed their livestock, both pigs and cattle, to root up, trample and scatter many of the bones. This was in living memory, not ancient history. These were, after all, just a lot of "worthless" paupers, mixed bloods of various hues, many people of color whose graves were looked upon as being in the way of efficient farm operations.
When highway proponents claim that if there were "really" Indian graves in the wetlands local farmers who leased the land would have reported plowing up remains, keep in mind that these were some of the very same folks who set their pigs upon the pauper's graves. If you believe for a minute that such people gave a damn about a few bones of dead Indians you probably were not around when Kansans had a major roadside attraction of Native American skeletons down the highway from Lawrence. There are, without any doubt, Native American burials in this wetland. No one familiar with the history and circumstances of the place could possibly conclude otherwise, unless the pay for such intellectual blindness was damned good.
On the other hand, graves are only one aspect of what causes so many Native Americans to consider the wetlands truly sacred. This is not to say protection of graves is not important, but it is obvious that proponents of paving the wetlands would love to have this issue rest entirely on whether remains are "found" along the path of construction. The entire historic Haskell campus is a place crucial to preserving history that some in this town are anxious to forget. It is apparent some would prefer to bury that history under as much asphalt as they can haul into the wetland.
3. Won't this wetland be even better after the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) completes its "mitigation"?
KDOT's mitigation package is a perfect example of "greenwashing". The acreage would indeed increase, but there are serious doubts that the newly added land would ever have the biological diversity of the wetland impacted by road building. With the best of luck it would not establish itself until long after traffic through the immediate area increased to levels that would severely diminish the quality of this place as a habitat for wetland wildlife.
Oxford English Dictionary Definition:
green*wash: (n) Disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. Derivatives greenwashing (n). Origin from green on the pattern of whitewash.
CorpWatch definition:
green*wash: (gr~en-w^osh) -washers, -washing, -washed
1.) The phenomenon of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment and leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty. 2) Environmental whitewash. 3) Hogwash.
The so-called "gem" of a wetland that KDOT promises to finance would have to contend with eight or ten lanes of traffic by the time it has any chance of establishing itself at a level vaguely comparable to what exists today. Not one biologist spoke in favor of this plan at the Corps of Engineers public hearing. The half dozen professionals trained and experienced with wetland ecology who testified all opposed routing the SLT through the wetland. While KDOT says it would finance a new visitor's center to explain the history of the wetlands, they failed to mention that there is already an under-funded nature center at Prairie Park that should be expanded to serve this purpose. Ironically, by routing the SLT through the wetlands KDOT would erect a physical barrier that essentially kills Prairie Park Nature Center. It would soon atrophy into just another biologically impoverished "green space".
Without the trafficway eviscerating the area there is a wonderful opportunity to connect both Naismith Park and Prairie Park to Wakarusa (Haskell-Baker) Wetland. These integrated parks would form a unique biological preserve in the heart of the city as it is likely to exist in the near future. More importantly, a nationally significant historical site would be saved from oblivion. By working with those landowners south of the Wakarusa who are serious about conserving the beautiful mixed habitats they possess, the city and state could establish conservation easements that insure wildlife migration routes in and out of the area.
green*wash: (n) Disinformation disseminated by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. Derivatives greenwashing (n). Origin from green on the pattern of whitewash.
CorpWatch definition:
green*wash: (gr~en-w^osh) -washers, -washing, -washed
1.) The phenomenon of socially and environmentally destructive corporations attempting to preserve and expand their markets by posing as friends of the environment and leaders in the struggle to eradicate poverty. 2) Environmental whitewash. 3) Hogwash.
The so-called "gem" of a wetland that KDOT promises to finance would have to contend with eight or ten lanes of traffic by the time it has any chance of establishing itself at a level vaguely comparable to what exists today. Not one biologist spoke in favor of this plan at the Corps of Engineers public hearing. The half dozen professionals trained and experienced with wetland ecology who testified all opposed routing the SLT through the wetland. While KDOT says it would finance a new visitor's center to explain the history of the wetlands, they failed to mention that there is already an under-funded nature center at Prairie Park that should be expanded to serve this purpose. Ironically, by routing the SLT through the wetlands KDOT would erect a physical barrier that essentially kills Prairie Park Nature Center. It would soon atrophy into just another biologically impoverished "green space".
Without the trafficway eviscerating the area there is a wonderful opportunity to connect both Naismith Park and Prairie Park to Wakarusa (Haskell-Baker) Wetland. These integrated parks would form a unique biological preserve in the heart of the city as it is likely to exist in the near future. More importantly, a nationally significant historical site would be saved from oblivion. By working with those landowners south of the Wakarusa who are serious about conserving the beautiful mixed habitats they possess, the city and state could establish conservation easements that insure wildlife migration routes in and out of the area.
4. Aren't KDOT's engineers designing "sound barriers" to protect the wetland?
Sound walls weren't ever intended for this purpose. These structures are expensive remedies used as a last resort to placate taxpayers whose homes are immediately adjacent to crucial urban expressways. As for Native American spiritual and historical concerns, these barriers simply make matters worse.
This bazaar proposal to spend an additional $2 million taxpayer dollars constructing double mile-long noise reduction features is a KDOT public relations stunt left over from the previous administration. Neither the sound wall nor the earthen berm are effective in blocking the noise that this project would generate. Such structures are designed to placate residents of homes in the immediate sound shadow of highways. For a more extended discussion see Mike Caron's "Unsound Walls" commentary sent to the Corps of Engineers.
5. Why do so many Native Americans care about what happens in a place that is not connected to their own tribe's "traditional" homelands or hunting grounds?
The wetlands are an important part of the historic Haskell campus. Students from virtually every tribe in America have participated in this famous institution's history. Certainly, no Native American sacred site on this continent has associations with so many different tribes.
The Kaw, Osage and Pawnee are the principal tribes with historic claims to these wetlands in aboriginal times. Ancestors of Caddoan peoples, like the Pawnee and Wichita, were living in this region prior to the arrival of Souixan related peoples like the Kaw and Osage. The Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, Ottawa, Potawatomie, Kickapoo, and other tribes were removed to this corner of Kansas in the decades before the Civil War. These tribes have additional traditional interests and claims.
However, it is students-representing literally hundreds of tribes- brought to Haskell Institute when it was one of the most notorious off reservation boarding schools, who undoubtedly have the most vital interest in what happens to this historic wetland. Hardly a tribe in America does not count some of its ancestors and elders among Haskell's alumni. Wherever one goes in Indian Country today, it takes but a moment to find someone with Haskell roots.
However, it is students-representing literally hundreds of tribes- brought to Haskell Institute when it was one of the most notorious off reservation boarding schools, who undoubtedly have the most vital interest in what happens to this historic wetland. Hardly a tribe in America does not count some of its ancestors and elders among Haskell's alumni. Wherever one goes in Indian Country today, it takes but a moment to find someone with Haskell roots.
6. How can this be a "sacred" place when Haskell was only established in 1884, not that much more than a century ago?
Non-Indians seem to have a strange double standard when it comes to understanding the concept of sacred places. While few would contest the notion that Gettysburg is sacred ground or that the field where Flight 93 crashed elsewhere in Pennsylvania is well worth special protection, sacred sites in Indian Country are supposed to be many centuries old if their importance is to be taken seriously.
A major battle for the minds, for the very souls of Native Americans took place here. The federally sponsored efforts to exterminate native cultures through off-reservation boarding schools was active in this location at a larger scale and longer than anywhere else in the country. The wetlands, both as a crucial refuge and as the ill-conceived "farm", played a central role in this long ignored chapter of American history. Haskell's historic campus is the primary, and many would argue the only, tangible landscape where that profoundly complicated history can still be presented as an historic site.
7. Don't we need the South Lawrence Trafficway to make 23rd Street safer and to end the traffic nightmare there?
Even KDOT's own engineers and federal highway officials have conceded that the South Lawrence Trafficway will have no lasting effect on the 23rd Street traffic mess. That congested commercial corridor was created by poor planning decades ago. Highways generate more traffic, not less. Neither 23rd Street nor the SLT will be made any safer if the wetland is paved over.
As early as 1995 KDOT's own engineers admitted at a public hearing that any impact on 23rd Street trafficway would be extremely short lived. The consensus seems to be that congestion there would be back to the "norm" in no more than 18 months. The problems on 23rd have to do with myopic decisions that let businesses locate far too close to the curb. Blindly developer-friendly zoning of the time allowed too many curb cuts. Alleviating congestion along that corridor would require a long slow process of having new businesses build back from the existing road, and eliminating many curb cuts. There are no indications anyone is really interested in facing the political challenges or horrendous costs of resolving that mess.
8. Is the alternative route south of the Wakarusa River too expensive and impractical?
No. KDOT's blatant efforts to portray a south of the river route negatively are transparent. Independent engineers have pointed out that options were clearly intended to inflate the costs of going south of the Walarusa.
The specific so-called "42nd St." alternative route unnecessarily threatens historical properties in that area for the obvious purpose of arousing opposition among as many land owners as possible. It selected angles and locations for bridges clearly intended to inflate the relative costs. This pattern of gross unfairness continues with the latest 4f draft document, which adjusts cost estimates for the 32nd Street route minimally, while raising the cost of a route south of the river by many millions without any effort to justify the enormous discrepancies.
For an extended review of the failings of KDOT's south of the river studies see the alternatives offered by the Prairie Band Potawatomie Nation.
For an extended review of the failings of KDOT's south of the river studies see the alternatives offered by the Prairie Band Potawatomie Nation.
9. What can I do to help Save the Wetlands?
First, by helping to raise the funds needed for litigation to fight KDOT in federal court. Secondly, do everything you can to bring this matter to the attention of others. If you are a member of a tribe, make sure that the appropriate people stay aware of developments and that the Corps of Engineers and elected officials hear loud and clear that your tribe does not want the wetlands paved!
If you are a Methodist understand that the vast majority of Haskell superintendents during the darkest days of cultural extermination were Methodist ministers or prominent Methodist leaders. Let your church leaders know it is long overdue for Methodists to do their part to make amends for this serious wrong.
If you are a Baker student or alumnus you have tremendous power to get the attention of the current administration. Without former Baker University president Dan Lambert's collaboration KDOT would be forced to build this road south of the river or abandon the project. Let President Long know that it is time to seek a new path and build a strong alliance with your neighbors at Haskell Indian Nations University to insure that the Wakarusa Wetlands becomes a place known nationally and internationally as a great natural preserve, a major native sacred landscape, an outdoor classroom and research center, and an essential site of historical remembrance.
If you are not from Lawrence or Douglas County, be sure to let our local chamber of commerce know what you think of their unending support for this trafficway across sacred ground.
If you are an environmentalist and want to see the growing practice of "green-washing" stemmed, let Baker University officials hear your concerns about this asinine 32nd Street route. Calling that ruse environmentally friendly is the height of hypocrisy.
Finally, if you are a University of Kansas student or alumni be aware that YOUR school has the power to end the threat to the wetlands by returning the 20 acres it received back in 1968. There has been very little effort to use this small parcel either for research or learning by KU. This small parcel at the southwest corner of 31st and Haskell Avenue sits directly in the path of the 32nd Street route. Without KU's acquiescence KDOT cannot proceed with their plan to pave the wetlands. Let the university know that you think it is time for your school to wash its hands of this stolen and largely unused former Haskell land. Give it back to Haskell and kill the 32nd Street "dead horse" once and for all.
If you are a Baker student or alumnus you have tremendous power to get the attention of the current administration. Without former Baker University president Dan Lambert's collaboration KDOT would be forced to build this road south of the river or abandon the project. Let President Long know that it is time to seek a new path and build a strong alliance with your neighbors at Haskell Indian Nations University to insure that the Wakarusa Wetlands becomes a place known nationally and internationally as a great natural preserve, a major native sacred landscape, an outdoor classroom and research center, and an essential site of historical remembrance.
If you are not from Lawrence or Douglas County, be sure to let our local chamber of commerce know what you think of their unending support for this trafficway across sacred ground.
If you are an environmentalist and want to see the growing practice of "green-washing" stemmed, let Baker University officials hear your concerns about this asinine 32nd Street route. Calling that ruse environmentally friendly is the height of hypocrisy.
Finally, if you are a University of Kansas student or alumni be aware that YOUR school has the power to end the threat to the wetlands by returning the 20 acres it received back in 1968. There has been very little effort to use this small parcel either for research or learning by KU. This small parcel at the southwest corner of 31st and Haskell Avenue sits directly in the path of the 32nd Street route. Without KU's acquiescence KDOT cannot proceed with their plan to pave the wetlands. Let the university know that you think it is time for your school to wash its hands of this stolen and largely unused former Haskell land. Give it back to Haskell and kill the 32nd Street "dead horse" once and for all.
10. How can I get to the wetlands, and are there any "guided tours"?
From 23rd Street turn south either on Haskell Avenue or Louisiana Street (at Checker's). Go south one mile to 31st Street. The entrance to the Wakarusa (a.k.a. Haskell-Baker) Wetlands is on the south side of 31st midway between Louisiana and Haskell Ave. Turn left/east off Louisiana or right/west off Haskell Avenue. There is only one turn south between these major streets. There is a kiosk with location map is to the right as you enter the wetland. A free bird list brochure and nature trail guide, both compliments of Jayhawk Audubon, are available at the kiosk. Walk a few yards west to enter the boardwalk. Free guided tours can be arranged by contacting Mike Caron of Save the Wetlands at mcaron@sunflower.com.