Section A · Page 10
The University Daily Kansan
Monday, May 7, 2001
Trafficway's alignment, future still unclear
Continued from page 1A
The western leg of the South Lawrence Trafficway, which stretches nine miles from I-70, comes to an abrupt halt at the 3400 block of Iowa Street. Photo by Thad Allender/KANSAN
the project as an encroachment on a culturally and environmentally sensitive land.
Haskell had the most to lose. Its burial grounds could be churned up if the road were laid through the northern edge of the Baker Wetlands on or near 31st Street, and it would be a stone's throw away from the Medicine Wheel, a sacred circle Haskell dedicated to the Lawrence community in 1992 that represents diverse beliefs.
Alumni who attended Haskell when it still owned more than 1,000 acres of land view the trafficway as the continuation of a policy of encroachment. Through the years, Haskell's land has been sold off piece by piece, almost 700 acres in all, including the Baker Wetlands, which used to define the university's southern boundary.
For environmentalists, the wet lands are still a viable educational tool for students and the community. Ninety percent of Kansas wetlands have already been lost, and some say a highway cutting through the ecosystem would destroy its value and usefulness.
Wicked roadway of the West
Throughout U.S. history, Native American victories have been few and far between. But organized opposition to the trafficway by Haskell students, alumni supporters and environmentalists effectively killed the project midstream almost a year ago.
Highway planners broke ground for the traffic inland in 1994 and, $70 million later, constructed the first nine miles. The western leg extended to the 3400 block of Iowa Street, on the doorstep of the wetlands. However, before the final section could be built, the opposition filed a lawsuit, halting construction.
A federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement be completed before construction could resume
But that approval never came.
Roadway resuscitation
Officials with the Federal Highway Administration studied three possible routes for the trafficway, but they were unwilling to recommend any route that Haskell opposed. As a result, the report recommended the "no build" alternative.
"It really should have ended the discussion," said Bob Eye, Wetlands Preservation Organization attorney.
Today, however, the trafficway is still alive. Now purely a state-funded project, the road that was thought to lead to nowhere is being pushed by the Kansas Department of Transportation.
Mike Rees, chief counsel for KDOT, said he didn't like the way the trafficway was taken down. He viewed the controversy as a political problem, and he said the protesters should have dealt with it solely in that arena.
"I saw a group of people who commaneered government," Rees said. "We can't function as a society if we allow special interest groups to dictate to us what happens."
"I think what KDOT needs to do is start over," Rees said.
Rees, a Lecompton resident, is spearheading the project because he said the trafficway was needed.
It was important to "wipe the slate off," he said, and make sure the entire community had a voice in the final decision.
Haskell out opposition not
Haskell, its Board of Regents and the Wetlands Preservation Organization had long been the primary roadblock to preventing construction of the eastern leg of the traffcway.
Joe Frazier, deputy director for school operations at the U.S. Office of Indian Education, which is under the Bureau, wrote a letter to KDOT saying Haskell would officially drop its opposition to the trafficway if two conditions were met.
But a month ago, Rees went over the heads of the university's administration to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the government agency that oversees Haskell, to work out a deal.
First, Douglas County would have to vacate 31st Street, which cuts eastwest through the southern part of Haskell's campus, and make it wetlands again. Second, the eventual route of the trafficway would have to be far enough south to not adversely affect the Haskell campus.
"We didn't even realize he had the authority to do this," Contreras said. "It remains to be seen if KDOT can make a deal with the county."
The prospect of vacating 31st Street is tricky because the road's right-of-way belongs to the county, and city and county officials have discussed expanding the busy road to four lines east of Louisiana Street.
Lawrence officials have already dedicated $100,000 to a study of a wider 31st Street, but Mayor Mike Rundle said he wasn't sure if they should pull the plug on it.
If 131 Street were vacated, Rees said, the eventual streetway couldn't go any further south than 32nd Street because the county wouldn't endorse it.
Also, even though Haskell's administration seems to be out of the equation, the WPO, alumni and the Board of Regents are holding their ground.
"In our eyes, the BIA can't make a decision for anyone at Haskell," said Ross, who was one of the litigants who successfully sued to stop the eastern leg of the trafficway.
She's upset that the students and alumni weren't included in the decision. She had never even heard Frazier's name until the deal was complete.
"It will probably be challenged," Ross said.
Regent Martha Houle, who is also the national alumni president for Haskell, said she had always been supportive of the students and WPO, but it was time for alumni to step forward.
She said she wasn't concerned with KDOT's plans because she believed the tribal governments, represented by the Haskell Board of Regents, were more powerful than the developers.
"I feel we should join instead of sit back as reinforcements," she said.
"It's time for us to come in and express our thoughts about it. The WPO needs it."
Reason for the fight
"Each one of those medicine men told us no matter what happens, to protect these graves out here and not allow them to be disturbed," Contreras said. "That's one of the main reasons I'm in this fight."
"At that time we had a bunch of elders and medicine men on campus here, so we took that chance to go around and talk to each one of them about what was happening here," Contreras said.
"This happens to be a sensitive ecosystem, but for myself, regardless of what kind of land it is, it's the history and the burials that I'm trying to protect."
Michael Contraeras had never left his native Southern California before coming to Haskell in 1994. Fresh out of high school, he quickly learned about the controversy that had been stewing in his new home.
Haskell organized a conference during his first year to celebrate the legalized transportation of an Indian medicine called peyote. Members of tribes from across the country were in attendance.
Haskell alumnus Noah Allen, who graduated in 1942, put it more bluntly.
"You leave them the hell alone," he said about the graves. "You don't disturb ancestors."
In January, KDOT hired a Denver consulting firm to use radar and other high-tech methods in an attempt to locate possible burial sites. The consultants studied about six plots, but no sites were located.
under the assumption that graves were present.
Nevertheless, Rees said he would continue to deal with the wetlands
"If there are Native American burial sites, there are federal guidelines to deal with those," Rees said.
Contneras was unswayed by the study.
"We're not going to go out of our way to convince you doxist." he said.
way to prove they do exist," he said. The WPO is exploring tactics to keep the trafficway at bay. One is to designate the wetlands as a National Historic Landmark to potentially force developers to build around it. Another strategy is buying back the wetlands from Baker University
Contreas isn't opposed to the idea of the trafficway, just its location. He wants to see the bypass loop around the wetlands south of the Wakarusa River.
But that route is only now beginning to be studied, and traditionally KDOT has said that route was too expensive and wouldn't accomplish the goal of alleviating 23rd Street traffic because it would be too far south.
Green with concern
A frog received nearly 2,000 votes in the Douglas County Commission elections in November 1986. A group of environmentalists concerned with the fate of the endangered northern crawfish frog, which lived in the Baker Wetlands, created a fictional amphibian called Agnes T. Frog and encouraged voters to write in her name.
write Agnes didn't win, she did receive almost 30 percent of the vote. Looking back, Roger Martin, a KU writer and an environmental activist, said the Committee to Elect a True Amphibian never expected to win the election; it just wanted to raise awareness about what would happen if the trafficway went
.
through the wetlands.
10 oay, Martin and his compatriots are no longer involved in the battle that has lingered for 15 years, but environmental objections to the road are still being expressed.
The Jayhawk Audubon Society, like the WPO, is opposed to any highway route north of the Wakarusa river.
Alison Reber, president, said her organization was still promoting awareness of the wetlands, which are an important educational resource. She said she hoped KDOT would take a serious look at the route south of the river. Although the organization isn't planning legal action, Reber said it was keeping a close eye on the project and making sure no environmental regulations were being skirted.
KU Environs has the same position. The campus organization's co-chairman, Scott McKenzie, said as soon as he got a better feel for what KDOT was planning, KU Environs would team with the WPO in opposition.
Which way to go?
The Federal Highway Administration studied three routes in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. All of them — 31st, 35th and 38th Streets — cut through the Haskell Baker Wetlands. A route south of the Wakarusa River wasn't included in the study.
Because the report was unable to resolve any objections to the three routes, it recommended the only option remaining: "no build."
But Rees said "no build" wasn't synonymous with "can't build."
Rees pointed out the environmental impact statement was not designed to make a decision.
"The purpose is to make sure that
all environmental concerns are addressed. he said.
That process is not complete.
that process is not complete.
Rees is putting into place the pieces needed to carry the project through to the end. KDOT recently purchased land south of 31st and west of Louisiana streets to protect its options, one of which is a 32nd Street alignment that would run through the northern part of the Baker Wetlands but just miss Haskell's property.
"It's become easy to say south of the river," said Rees, who maintains that the land surrounding the river has its own set of environmental concerns.
Rees, who doesn't have a preferred alignment in mind, said one of the biggest misconceptions about the project was that building the traffic south of the Wakarusa was "environmentally benign."
The state has also hired Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff, a Kansas City, Mo-based engineering firm, to develop a projected timeline for the trafficway project and conduct another environmental impact statement that would study all possible routes, including south of the river.
but Roger Boyd, chairman of biology at Baker, said he had challenged those claims before.
"From an ecological standpoint, there's nothing that would be a tremendous loss," Boyd said of the southern alternative.
However, if the trafficway were to dissect any part of the wetlands, Boyd said, it would create an immediate disruption. He said traffic on the new road would displace wildlife activity on either side up to 200 feet and would increase road kill.
The 38th Street alignment would isolate the majority of the wetlands
from the Wakarusa River, making it harder for animals to access it. Thirty-fifth Street would slice the ecosystem in half, and 32nd Street would destroy the wettest part of the wetlands as well as take out the boardwalk, an elevated path for visitors to get a better look at wildlife and vegetation.
"There really isn't any other place to put the boardwalk that's as diverse," Boyd said. "In a sense, you're destroying the best part of the wetlands."
Mitigation tactics
KDOT's inability to appease the opposition has not been for a lack of effort. Just recently it put an offer on the table to double the size of the wetlands and build a nature facility if the trafficway could be built north of the Wakarausa River.
The mitigation proposal hasn't impressed the opposition or the educational community in Lawrence that uses the wetlands for research and class trips. Critics of the proposals question who would be in charge of the center and how it would affect the business of the nearby Prairie Park Nature Center.
John Fuller, spokesman for the university, said Baker was trying to be as helpful as it could with the process. The university hasn't endorsed any one route. Fuller declined to comment on mitigation possibilities.
Baker University, a key player in the controversy as owner of the wetlands, has held the same opinion about the trafficway for the past 10 years: It isn't opposed.
The prognosis
Mike Rees, chief counsel for the Kansas Department of Transportation, gazes to the east, where the South Lawrence Trafficway meets a wide open field. Rees is spearheading the project that has been a source of controversy for 15 years. Photo by Thad Allender/KANSAN
Last month at a meeting with Lawrence office, KDOT engineer George Sloop was announced as the new project manager of the traffway project, and at that time, Rees said he was taking a less active role. But since then, Rees has said he isn't going anywhere, and he's still working closely with the new consultants.
"We're learning these projects aren't just road projects; they're social projects," he said. "It's kind of a painful lesson, but it's not a bad lesson."
Reflecting on the history of the ill-fated trafficway, Rees said it had been a failure of government to address issues.
He remains confident of the trafficway's eventual completion.
"It's going to be built; there's no question about it," he said. "There's no reason not to build a trafficway. When it's done, it will be a showpiece."
WPO attorney Bruce Plenk, who's been involved with the controversy for the past five years, agrees, sort of.
He said a bypass of some sort would probably make it around Lawrence, but not through the wetlands.
I'm optimistic that people will come to their senses," he said. "To me, it makes just as much sense as if they put the road through Allen Fieldhouse."
- Edited by Sydney Wallace