From ryan at kawvalley.net Wed Oct 11 00:52:23 2006 From: ryan at kawvalley.net (Ryan Gregg) Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 23:52:23 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] testing Message-ID: <040001c6ecf1$1c8ec570$0701a8c0@tsunami> WERE BACK! From mcaron at sunflower.com Wed Oct 11 22:50:57 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:50:57 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] Imagination & Place in the Wetlands Message-ID: <001e01c6eda9$3e311da0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> Dear Mike, Here is an announcement about the October 28, 2006, Imagination & Place Wetlands event. Is this something you would like to send to Save The Wetlands e-mail list? Thank you, Laurie ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Committee on Imagination and Place presents The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image: Making It Real On Saturday, October 28, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., the Committee on Imagination & Place will celebrate the Wakarusa Wetlands with a morning of photography and painting demonstrations, writing and poetry workshops, nature walks, history talks, and more. This is an opportunity to experience the wetlands with contributors to the book, The Wakarusa Wetlands in Word & Image, published in 2005 by the Committee with the Lawrence Arts Center. The book will also be available for purchase. Session leaders will include book editor Denise Low, writers Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg and Elizabeth Schultz, artists Lisa Grossman and Kyle Gerstner, naturalist Ken Lassman, and historian Mike Caron. The event is free and open to the public. Bring cameras, sketch pads, or journals. And, be prepared with warm clothing, sturdy shoes, hats, sunglasses, water, snacks, and a chair or blanket. No modern facilities are available on-site. The Wetlands are located south of 31st St. in Lawrence; enter 1/2-mile east of Louisiana St. or 1/2-mile west of Haskell Ave.; park along 31st St. For information: lacgallery at sunflower.com, 785-843-2787. Visit www.imaginationandplace.org and click on "Coming Up" to download the complete schedule. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.2/472 - Release Date: 10/11/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Fri Oct 13 09:13:12 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 08:13:12 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] Maple Leafletting Message-ID: <002701c6eec9$56321dc0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> I think Kelly Barth will be posting minutes from the meeting shortly. We did authorize spending some money to help reconstruct and redesign the savethewetlands.org website. We also agreed that if we can rally enough volunteers we want to do leafletting at the Baldwin Maple Leaf Festival, which is the weekend of Oct 21-22. That seemed like the best and most available opportunity to get the attention of Baker University in their own back yard. Their new president is just settling in. She needs to understand now, early on, that she has an opportunity to avoid bringing major disgrace to Baker and controversy to her administration. Dan Lambert's role in promoting the 32nd Street plan has harmed Baker's reputation. This is also a chance to break through the wall that keeps most Baker students in the dark, fed exclusively on a diet of greenwashed mind salad cooked in the Boyd/Lambert kitchen. Nothing could turn the corner on this like the Baker community having doubts about their devil's deal with KDOT. Since it is apparent that there will be no money for years (if ever) they will need to balance years of bad press against the remote possibility that the university may someday obtain the $8.5 million (legal bribe) promised for letting the wetland be paved. Anyone interested in joining us for a "maple leafletting" of Baldwin please get in touch with Mike Caron. Meanwhile I am working on a "Maple Leaflet" especially for this event and will post a draft for comments shortly. P.S. I am assuming that the "Freedom Rally" in South Park on that weekend was a very poorly organized effort that fell apart. The website is no longer up and the phone number I had for the person who asked me to speak is no longer in service. I don't believe, as someone suggested, that it was a hoax to keep us away from Baldwin. Mike -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.3/473 - Release Date: 10/12/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Sun Oct 15 23:15:58 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2006 22:15:58 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] draft Maple Leaflet text Message-ID: <000501c6f0d1$66b4e4c0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> This is the promised draft of my "maple leaflet" text. If we make certain that copies reach crucial Baker University locations it will not be necessary to spend a great deal of time and effort leafletting the thousands who attend the two day Maple Leaf Festival. We'll do what we can and let Baker University administration wonder about how many people took home the leaflets. The following seven statements, with maple leaf decorations bulleting each item, would be on one side of the sheet. Our annotated map of the wetlands will be on the reverse side. Any comments, corrections, suggestions, precautions or other words of advice are appreciated. Sorry I do not have the computer skills to provide a mock up of the actual leaflet as I envision putting it together. I plan to use an appropriate colored paper, perhaps with suppressed maple leaves in the background. Baker officials claim that the trafficway would affect only those 70 acres of wetlands actually buried under the roadbed. Even the transportation industry recognizes harmful effects extend far beyond the traffic corridor. Highways alter salinity, sedimentation and flow of water, all critical factors in the health of wetlands. Baker also says these new roads will be separated by a mile long $1million 12' concrete "noise" barrier. This is classic "greenwashing": concrete reflects sound waves, actually making matters WORSE on both the SLT and 31st Street sides of the project! The effects, even if the wall wasn't between the two roads, help for only 400' or less. Fragmentation caused by the SLT would severely compromise the biological integrity and diversity of Baker's wetlands. Many species cross the existing road. They use both Haskell and Baker habitat in their seasonal movements. The 32nd Street route would interfere with the well-established life cycles and migration routines of many wetland dwelling species. Unlike the wetlands Baker acquired in the 60s, the adjacent land has been subjected to decades of pesticides and herbicides designed to eliminate many of the plant species essential to healthy wetlands. This "mitigation" wetland would be degraded and far less biologically diverse compared to what would be buried under pavement. Baker University contends the SLT would not be used if built south of the Wakarusa River. Lawrence is building an $80 million wastewater facility south of the river. It will bring 20,000 or more new residents south of the Wakarusa. Building a "by-pass" in the wetlands well north of this planned major growth area makes no sense. Baker's leaders pretend they are making a sacrifice to help relieve traffic on 23rd Street. KDOT has acknowledged that the SLT will have NO lasting effect on the mess past city officials made of that poorly designed street, regardless of the route selected. In truth Baker sold out to those who want a road through the wetlands for developments along 31st Street. They were bought off for about $8.5 million! Not bad for land Baker helped bilk from Haskell without paying a penny! Baker says Haskell Indian Nations University will "benefit" because 31st Street would be removed from their campus. This is the most malicious falsehood of all. While many Native Americans would be delighted to see 31st Street vacated, few fail to understand that the so-called 32nd Street plan would create a massive permanent barrier to wetlands many Indians consider sacred. Tribes all across the country consider this wetland critically important to preserving the history of our nation's long experiment with using off-reservation boarding schools. Many other former Indian boarding school lands across the country have already been turned into shopping malls, golf courses and highways. Haskell alumni and friends are determined that this wetland will survive as a tangible reminder of where their school came from and how it was transformed. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/476 - Release Date: 10/14/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Mon Oct 16 20:24:57 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:24:57 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] Maple Leaf Festival Leafletting Message-ID: <001e01c6f182$ad0b9de0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> I hope to have at least half a dozen people join me in handing out leaflets at the Baldwin Maple Leaf Festival Saturday. The main thing is to really get the new Baker University administration thinking about whether they want to adopt the position they were handed by Dan Lambert or "turn over a new leaf" that does not involve paving the wetlands. Any help any of you can give in spreading the word about helping Saturday is greatly appreciated. I'll have the leaflets ready. We will gather at my house, 315 Park Hill Terrace, at 10:00 am to get materials and caravan to Baldwin. I think we can make a statement without standing around all day. Paper the administration area and key areas at Baker and hand out leaflets for 45 minutes or so. Done by noon unless someone wants to do more. Park Hill Terrace is half a mile south of Checkers off Louisiana (last left before Broken Arrow School). It is about 9 houses in on the right (southside), just before the curve where Montana St. begins. Thanks, Mike -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/477 - Release Date: 10/16/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Tue Oct 17 21:07:47 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:07:47 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] Haskell WPO & Ecology Club to take on Stinky Godzilla Message-ID: <002401c6f251$d37a05a0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> Yesterday, Monday October 16th, I met with the Haskell Ecology Club and WPO. These two campus groups have been asked to host a presentation by Black & Veatch about the Lawrence Wastewater Treatment Facility plans. Much of our discussion certered on the need to make certain B&V does not merely use this as a ploy to allege they have adequately consulted with Indians or "the tribes" or Haskell. In other public arenas they merely do their show and very little LISTENING. This is only useful if the Haskell community can use this as an opportunity to press them on real concerns, like the smelly sewage lift station, which is a mere 150 ft. from the Little Nations Day Care. The toddlers gag at times if allowed outside to play. Families and others who visit the Haskell Cemetery have to stand a few yards downwind of that often odoriferous site, and those seeking to be purified in the sweat lodges have to walk right through the cloud of fecal gasses coming and going to their bi-weekly sweats. Students at the meeting told me there are evenings when the residents at Roe Cloud Hall, well upwind and across campus, can't open their dorm windows due to the bad smell. All this is to suggest Haskell students and staff have a chance to strongly advocate remediating this problem a significant part of the infrastructural changes for the new waste water treatment facility. They also have an opportunity to voice their support for including as much restored wetland as possible to buffer the new treatment plant from neighbors. The western edge of the site "footprint" would be less than half a mile from Haskell Avenue and the existing eastern edge of the wetland. The area between is all designated "Green Space" on the draft future land use map T2030, which suggests someday the Wakarusa Wetland could grow substantially. One additional development that I did not anticipate. The latest plan put forth by the wastewater plant designers includes a version that has a "42nd Street" SLT running right beside the facility! I did not have time to study this in detail last night, but I certainly want to get the latest version. Of course, as I explained to the Haskell students, B&V has NO POWER to change minds at KDOT or the Corps of Engineers Record of Decision. It may simply be a last minute map added to make Haskell folks think their support of the project might lead to taking the SLT south of the river. Again, this is a chance to put B&V on the spot. Are they serious or playing with Haskell? The students wanted to know whether this meeting should be open to the public or restricted to Haskellites and other Native Americans in the community who share Haskell's particular concerns. I was of the opinion that it ought to be Haskell's day to speak directly with the plant designers. Mike -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/480 - Release Date: 10/17/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Tue Oct 17 21:47:13 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:47:13 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] Apartments overlooking lovely Wakarusa Wetlands Message-ID: <002f01c6f257$5589ab40$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> Today I received a call from Justin Montgomery with Professional Engineering Consultants of Topeka. Justin's firm is representing Fairfield Development Company of Georgia. Fairfield wants to build a 888 bed apartment complex on the southeast corner of 31st and Ousdahl. I learned from Justin that the project would be bordered on the east by the relocated Louisiana Street (1400 Rd) that currently forms the western boundary of the Wakarusa Wetlands. Justin Montgomery was entirely unaware, and thinks the developer is also unaware that IF Louisiana is torn out and moved to the west there would be restored "mitigation wetland" across the street from the complex they want to build. I did not get the sense that he was feigning ignorance or hiding the developer's knowledge of this part of the 32nd Street plan. I brought this up in the context of what they might be planning in the way of design features to minimize their impact on the wetlands and to explore whether they were intending to market the apartments as environmentally friendly and such. To the extent one can tell over the phone, I got a blank bewildered HUH? Mr. Fairchild previously met with the Indian Hills Neighborhood Association and received a chilly reception, though he did present himself generally as a thoughtful and tasteful developer, or perhaps a well seasoned flimflam artist. Apparently he will be flying in from Georgia sometime very soon to consult with my Park Hill Neighborhood Association (PhNA) since we would be at least as impacted by the additional traffic such a complex would bring to Louisiana Street. All but one outlet for our neighborhood is onto Louisiana Street and there are facing driveways from Checkers to Broken Arrow School where homeowners risk life and limb to back onto Louisiana. As president of PhNA I'll do what I can to make sure Mr. Fairchild, or whoever represents his company, has a large reception committee. Mike -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/480 - Release Date: 10/17/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Thu Oct 19 22:22:47 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:22:47 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] draft Maple Leaflet text References: <000501c6f0d1$66b4e4c0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> Message-ID: <00e101c6f3ee$a23535c0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> I have 500 maple leaflets printed. Sorry I can't display them here. Pat Long, the new Baker president, is the co-grand marshall of this year's Maple Leaf parade! The theme is "Discover a New Pathway". I'm sure they had the trafficway in mind! Hope SOMEONE has the time and inclination to join me on the expedition to Baldwin Saturday. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Caron" To: Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2006 10:15 PM Subject: [wetlands-announce] draft Maple Leaflet text > This is the promised draft of my "maple leaflet" text. If we make certain > that copies reach crucial Baker University locations it will not be > necessary to spend a great deal of time and effort leafletting the thousands > who attend the two day Maple Leaf Festival. We'll do what we can and let > Baker University administration wonder about how many people took home the > leaflets. The following seven statements, with maple leaf decorations > bulleting each item, would be on one side of the sheet. Our annotated map of > the wetlands will be on the reverse side. Any comments, corrections, > suggestions, precautions or other words of advice are appreciated. Sorry I > do not have the computer skills to provide a mock up of the actual leaflet > as I envision putting it together. I plan to use an appropriate colored > paper, perhaps with suppressed maple leaves in the background. > > Baker officials claim that the trafficway would affect only those 70 acres > of wetlands actually buried under the roadbed. Even the transportation > industry recognizes harmful effects extend far beyond the traffic corridor. > Highways alter salinity, sedimentation and flow of water, all critical > factors in the health of wetlands. > > Baker also says these new roads will be separated by a mile long $1million > 12' concrete "noise" barrier. This is classic "greenwashing": concrete > reflects sound waves, actually making matters WORSE on both the SLT and 31st > Street sides of the project! The effects, even if the wall wasn't between > the two roads, help for only 400' or less. > > Fragmentation caused by the SLT would severely compromise the biological > integrity and diversity of Baker's wetlands. Many species cross the existing > road. They use both Haskell and Baker habitat in their seasonal movements. > The 32nd Street route would interfere with the well-established life cycles > and migration routines of many wetland dwelling species. > > Unlike the wetlands Baker acquired in the 60s, the adjacent land has been > subjected to decades of pesticides and herbicides designed to eliminate many > of the plant species essential to healthy wetlands. This "mitigation" > wetland would be degraded and far less biologically diverse compared to what > would be buried under pavement. > > Baker University contends the SLT would not be used if built south of the > Wakarusa River. Lawrence is building an $80 million wastewater facility > south of the river. It will bring 20,000 or more new residents south of the > Wakarusa. Building a "by-pass" in the wetlands well north of this planned > major growth area makes no sense. > > Baker's leaders pretend they are making a sacrifice to help relieve traffic > on 23rd Street. KDOT has acknowledged that the SLT will have NO lasting > effect on the mess past city officials made of that poorly designed street, > regardless of the route selected. In truth Baker sold out to those who want > a road through the wetlands for developments along 31st Street. > They were bought off for about $8.5 million! Not bad for land Baker helped > bilk from Haskell without paying a penny! > > Baker says Haskell Indian Nations University will "benefit" because 31st > Street would be removed from their campus. This is the most malicious > falsehood of all. While many Native Americans would be delighted to see 31st > Street vacated, few fail to understand that the so-called 32nd Street plan > would create a massive permanent barrier to wetlands many Indians consider > sacred. Tribes all across the country consider this wetland critically > important to preserving the history of our nation's long experiment with > using off-reservation boarding schools. Many other former Indian boarding > school lands across the country have already been turned into shopping > malls, golf courses and highways. Haskell alumni and friends are determined > that this wetland will survive as a tangible reminder of where their school > came from and how it was transformed. > > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/476 - Release Date: 10/14/06 > > _______________________________________________ > wetlands-announce mailing list > wetlands-announce at savethewetlands.org > http://lists.savethewetlands.org/mailman/listinfo/wetlands-announce > > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/476 - Release Date: 10/14/06 > > -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.7/488 - Release Date: 10/19/06 From mcaron at sunflower.com Sun Oct 22 21:39:05 2006 From: mcaron at sunflower.com (Michael Caron) Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 20:39:05 -0500 Subject: [wetlands-announce] Baker University Maple Leafletting Success Message-ID: <001a01c6f644$06b0d8e0$6601a8c0@nowyouremybitch> Due to the heavy rain yesterday the leafleting did not take place until this morning when things had dried out a bit. Five hundred leaflets were distributed, the overwhelming majority going onto Baker University student vehicles (every one that could be identified) and into Baker's Student Union and several other buildings that were open. The tourist crowd was nowhere near the 30,000 expected due to the rain and subsequent cold front, but I'm sure some of the Baker administrators will be wondering tomorrow just how many people went home with questions about why this university sold out to KDOT. I believe they will have a much harder time convincing their student body that the 32nd Street plan would be "good" for the wetlands or do environmental justice to Native American interests after today. I did see two Save the Wakarusa Wetlands bumper stickers on Baker student cars! Its a start. Now if we can just get a few students there to organize a forum on the wetlands we've got an excellent chance of getting the new administration to think long and hard about whether it is in the new Baker administration's interest to embrace ex-president Lambert's dead skunk. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.9/490 - Release Date: 10/20/06