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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2013
ENVIRONMENT
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MICHAEL STRICKLAND/KANSAN
The Wakarusa Wetlands area is a natural floodplain of the Wakarusa River, meaning it holds a good deal of the river's runoff and serves as a habitat for local animal and plant life.
DEBATED DEVELOPMENT
Construction of the South Lawrence Trafficway in the Wakarusa Wetlands underway
DUNCAN MCHENRY
dmchenry@kansan.com
Atter decades of debate and legal wrangling, the first phase of construction on the South Lawrence Trafficway, a six-mile highway linking K-10 east of Lawrence and U.S. 59/K-10 to the south by passing through the Wakarusa Wetlands, began on Nov. 12.
Kim Qualls of the Kansas Department of Transportation said contractors are still working on a definite schedule for all stages of construction, but crews have begun clearing vegetation from the road's future path. They expect to finish the project — part of KDOT's 10-year, $8 billion transportation program called T-WORKS — by fall of 2016.
To make way for the new section of highway, which has been contested in the Lawrence community for years due to the ecological and historical significance of the wetland area, several South Lawrence streets will also be restructured. Along with joining the two currently disconnected segments of K-10 that eventually intersect with I-70, the SLT project
will also relocate sections of Louisiana Street, 31st Street and Haskell Avenue that run alongside the Wakarusa Wetlands. Qualls said the new six-mile connection will be beneficial for transportation in and around Lawrence, and that it will allow traffic to flow more smoothly on city streets because highway drivers will no longer need to pass through Lawrence on 23rd Street.
"It will also be a second corridor linking K-10 to I-70," she said.
"It will also be a second corridor linking K-10 to I-70," she said.
Qualls added that highway trucking was a factor in the decision, as a new 1,000-acre development called BNSF Intermodal and Logistics Park KC is opening in Gardner-Edgerton. Like other intermodal facilities, its purpose will be loading flatbed cargo onto semitrailers for transportation.
Qualls said the trafficway will open up more shipping connections.
"For moving goods in freight, they're always looking at timelines to get goods transported across the nation, and we as consumers expect to have goods readily available," Qualls said.
The Kansas Turnpike is one route, she said, but K-10 is closer to the BNSF Intermodal development.
Michael Caron, programs
director at Douglas County Jail who did two years of Ph.D. research at Louisiana State University on ethnic communities living in the wetlands of Louisiana, has been outspoken in the trafficway debate since it began. Caron said he objects to its construction for historical and
cultural reasons,
as the area of
land has been
highly valued
by Lawrence's
Native American
community since
the days when
the United States
Indian Industrial
Training School
— now Haskell
Indian Nations
University — was
founded in 1884.
As one of the U.S. government's American Indian boarding schools, Haskell was a place where young Native Americans were taken from their families and tribes to be educated and converted to European-American cultural standards. Caron said the Wakarusa Wetlands area was a space where students could reconnect with their families in secret.
"If those wetlands had not been there, Haskell students could not have resisted that cultural extermination."
"If those wetlands had not been there, Haskell students could not have resisted that cultural extermination," Caron said. "It provided such an opportunity for an outdoor classroom, for adults to really be able to actively show the kids what a plant was, with
tangible education,
saying, "This is
the kind of plant
you need when
you have this kind
of infection', and
real, immediate
lessons"
M a n y environmentalists have also argued that the SLT will be an unwarranted disruption to the
Wakarusa Wetlands ecosystem, which houses a range of biodiversity in numerous insects, plants and animals — some rarely found elsewhere in Kansas. Chuck Haines, a Ph.D. biology professor at Haskell, said the simple fact that the highway will be a physical barrier within an environment that is a refuge and nursery for migrating creatures is one of the biggest problems.
"I think they've tried to address some ecosystem problems, but the nature of roads are basically to fragment the habitat and the character of animal flow," Haines said. "[It will also] change the way water flows down there. You have to remember they're putting this road smack dab in the floodplain."
Because construction will directly destroy an estimated 57 acres of wetland, KDOT and Baker University have outlined plans to lessen environmental impacts and improve the condition of other wetland habitat nearby. Many of these efforts have already begun or been completed, according to Baker's website, such as the conversion of 140 acres of previously drained cropland to the west of Louisiana Street back to wetlands, the construction of more trails and boardwalks, and a visitor's center. An information sheet published by KDOT also states that "special construction procedures to minimize disturbance of existing soils," will be used, and "All highway runoff will be diverted away from the wetlands."
State Sen. Marci Francisco, a longtime Lawrence resident, said the trafficway discussion was
equally relevant 27 years ago. She recalled a fictitious amphibian
- Agnes T. Frog - running for county commissioner in a 1986 write-in campaign that sought to bring awareness to the road's potential environmental impact. Agnes T. Frog was based on an actual frog that was run over by traffic near the wetlands.
Francisco said environmental researchers and nature lovers alike have made arguments such as these since the very beginning of the SLT timeline. She added that mitigation efforts will be a crucial part of the highway's construction because the Wakarusa Wetlands naturally filter groundwater and are an important part of the local ecosystem.
"I'm very much hoping that the [mitigation] results are positive — we want that to work," Francisco said. "This is certainly a great example that we should be studying to say, 'Is this working? Are we getting the benefits comparable to what we got from the original wetlands?' Construction like this probably will continue, and we want to know what the best practices are."
SOUTH LAWRENCE TRAFFICWAY ROUTE
Edited by Paige Lytle
The future route of the South Lawrence Trafficway through the Wakarusa Wetlands. This map does not take into account the restructuring of several local streets, which will also be part of the project.